Inaccessible Accessibility:

Mental Health Disabilities in Higher Education

Kelly Davis

2

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Overview

Student perspectives on disability and accommodations

Barriers to accommodations

Recommendations to increase accessibility

College students are struggling

Campus mental health is more than mental

health services

Far more likely to drop out (especially across

intersectional identities)

70 % of students with mental health disabilities were not registered for accommodations.

20% said it was because they did not want them.

Disabilities and Mental Health

in Higher Education

Required for individual

accommodations

We offer accommodations.

So, what’s the problem?

Student awareness and perspectives

Barriers to documentation

Relationships with professors

Student

awareness

and

perspectives

Top reason: students do not believe they are “sick enough” for accommodations

Unfair advantage and disability identity

1 in 3 did not know they could get accommodations for mental health

30 percent do not know what accommodations are

Don’t find out until crisis

K-12 to higher ed:

•10 percent of young people had a depression episode that caused severe disruption in all life domains– only 1 percent identified for supports (2017-2018)

Disability education

• 70 percent said the best thing their schools can to is increased disability education

• Include education in all places

• Student mental health clubs and organizations expand to include disability

Recommendations

Disability Services Staff (1 in 3)

Navigating registration

Structural barriers

Accessibility services

RecommendationsPartner with students with disabilities to train disability services staff to

understand and develop appropriate accommodations.

Partner with students with disabilities or disability services staff to provide navigation support during the disability accommodations process.

Create alternatives to medical documentation of mental health disabilities due to structural barriers, like lack of health insurance or lack of diverse mental

heath professionals, that prevent many students from accessing mental health resources.

In the

Classroom

Attitudes, shame, and suspicion

Impacts registration and use of accommodations

Guess which professors

Recommendations

Train professors on mental health disabilities and accommodations, including how to support students requesting accommodations. (73% students)

Diversity in classrooms and disclosure

Recommendations

Facebook.com/mentalhealthamerica

Twitter.com/mentalhealtham

Youtube.com/mentalhealthamerica

Contact Us Mental Health America

500 Montgomery Street

Suite 820

Alexandria, VA 22314

14

Kelly Davis, AVP of Peer and Youth

Advocacy, Mental Health America kdavis@mhanational.org

THANKS FOR COMING

Kelly Davis