The Mental Health Literacy Aware Certification
Summary
In 2024, the Mental Health Literacy Collaborative (MHLC) committed to equip more than 30,000 degree-seeking educators with the information and skills to support student mental health in schools across the United States and Canada within three years. Through this commitment, the MHLC will create an online MHL Aware certification program that will teach educators what mental health literacy is, why it is beneficial, and how to advocate for mental health literacy for their students. The MHLC’s online platform, Trainer Central, will allow thousands of students to participate in virtual training and will also host the asynchronous version, further improving scalability. Alongside development of the online certification, MHLC will provide cost-covered MHL Aware training to 30,000 degree-seeking educators. The MHLC’s strong partnership with universities and colleges, paired with their online model and rigorous evaluation, will allow for the program to scale rapidly nationally and worldwide.
Approach
The Mental Health Literacy Collaborative (MHLC) commits to equipping 30,000+ degree-seeking educators with the information and skills to support student mental health throughout their teaching careers within three years.
Expanding upon the Mental Health Literacy (MHL) Advocacy Toolkit released in January 2024 (downloaded 3,000+ times) , MHLC will create an online MHL Aware certification program. MHL Aware is the first level of a new certification model that will help integrate MHL into communities. MHL Aware teaches: 1) What MHL is, 2) Why it is beneficial, and 3) How individuals can advocate for MHL in their community. MHLC will leverage automation and digital technology to customize its approach and serve the unique needs of varied student populations, institutions, instructors, and degree programs, enabling rapid scale without the need for a large team during and beyond the timeframe of this Commitment.
Alongside development of the online certification, MHLC will provide cost-covered MHL Aware training to 30,000 degree-seeking educators. Initial training will be both virtual and in-person. The MHLC team will expand to six trainers within the first year. Each 75-minute in-person training session will serve large numbers simultaneously using campus lecture halls. MHLC’s online platform, Trainer Central, will allow thousands of students to participate in virtual training and will also host the asynchronous version, further improving scalability. Rigorous evaluation of the MHL Aware certification will culminate in published results in peer-reviewed journals.
Existing partnerships with six (and counting) Universities and Colleges will provide access to student populations, venues for live presentations, and post-project evaluation support. Successful implementation requires fundraising, community building, leveraging technology, and project management. MHLC has a proven history of success in these areas, and their focus on collaboration has led to an impressive list of advisors and engaged organizations who are eager to support this work.
Action Plan
2024
Q3 Schedule the initial 10 live trainings with the current partner list. Begin training of 3 additional presenters for live training. In addition to in-person training, MHLC’s existing learning platform allows for live virtual training.
Q4 Complete the first 3 live trainings (500+ students trained) . Organize learnings from initial training sessions for refinement and online version preparation. Work with existing research partners to develop methods for a study.
2025
Q1 Schedule the next 10 live trainings, complete 5 previously scheduled live trainings, schedule live filming for Spring 2025 (for the online version) and develop 5 new university partnerships with a focus on diverse regional/geographical locations not yet reached.
Q2 Complete 5 live trainings at different university partner locations, which will be filmed in order to create the online version. MHLC’s video production partner will begin editing each presentation to eventually be edited together for the final online version.
Q3 Complete final edits and release the online version of the training. Work with university partners to integrate asynchronous training into their existing courseware. In coordination with their research team, MHLC will begin collecting data for an efficacy study.
Q4 Finalize 10 additional university partners to round out our partnership list (20+ partners total) . This partnership list will allow MHLC to reach 6,000 students per quarter for the remainder of the commitment.
2026
Q1 6,000 additional students trained (asynchronous) . Data collected for research study.
Q2 4,000 additional students trained (asynchronous) . Data collected for research study.
Q3 4,000 additional students trained (asynchronous) Data analysis begins as part of the research study.
Q4 6,000 additional students trained (asynchronous) . Research team continues to work on the study.
2027
Q1 Final 6,000 students trained (asynchronous) .
Q2 Study is published on the efficacy of the program.
Background
The US Surgeon General has identified the United States’ escalating youth mental health crisis as “the crisis of our time.” The existing system of school mental health has focused heavily on reactive services over proactive education. Despite worsening student mental health data, the system has remained unchanged (CDC YRBS Data Trends 2023 Report) . The world can’t treat its way out of this crisis. The need has exceeded the ability to provide appropriate and timely services, and the system is strained.
In recent years, many states have created broad legislation around mental health education. The legislation has been a positive step forward, but there are significant gaps between policy, research, and practice. As a result, the mental health education landscape is onerous and confusing for school communities, preventing them from educating students and their trusted adults about mental health at all. They simply don’t know where to begin.
More than 2 in 3 teens polled believe that schools should be teaching about mental health, including what mental health is and where/how to seek help (NAMI Teen Mental Health from Teens Themselves 2022) . Emerging school professionals have the energy and passion to solve this issue but need additional awareness of an evidence-based framework for understanding mental health.
Mental Health Literacy (MHL) is a universal, proactive education framework that teaches people to understand 1) how to foster positive mental health, 2) common mental health disorders and treatments, 3) how to reduce stigma, and 4) how to seek help effectively. It is a foundational and often missing piece of health literacy, with three decades of research about its benefits (Kutcher et al. 2016) .
Progress Update
Partnership Opportunities
The MHLC is actively raising philanthropic funding for the project and also seeks partners who can provide access to relevant student populations and expertise in film production/online learning development., The leadership team at MHLC are well-networked experts in the field of mental health literacy, which is demonstrated through the impressive list of advisors and organizations that have signed on to collaborate. Through those collaborations, they are defining best practices for mental health literacy implementation. Their ability to amplify their messages has also been established through their LinkedIn presence and their invitations to present at national conferences, webinars, and podcasts. All of this has enabled them to offer a Mental Health Literacy Certification that will be recognized nationally. Through the Commitment to Action, partners can offer that certification in Mental Health Literacy Aware to degree-seeking education professionals, giving them the tools to bring this foundational information to their communities.