Launch of the Advisory Council on Mental Health for Higher Education: Addressing the Increasing Importance of Mental Health in Educational Communities

Friday September 15, 2023

As part of the intersectoral mental health agenda that the Government is promoting, this Wednesday the Advisory Council on Mental Health for Higher Education was launched, which seeks to deliver public policy proposals that address a problem that has been increasingly taking its toll. more importance in educational communities.

The relevance of this topic is reflected in the First Institutional Diagnosis in Mental Health of the Higher Education System, which shows that the registration of mental health consultations on campuses grew 22.2 percentage points between 2018 (55.7%) and 2022 (77.9%). Furthermore, half of the institutions do not have agreements for the referral of students with problems in this area.

The first session, which was held at the Alberto Hurtado University, was headed by the Undersecretary of Higher Education, Víctor Orellana, who highlighted that the instance is crucial to “listen to students, experts, and representatives of higher education, to change the way in which we have our training cycles, in such a way that it is not an experience of overwhelm or suffering, that it is not generate mental health problems, but rather it is a rewarding experience, which we study to be happy. We also frame all of this in the higher education modernization agenda on which we are working.”

The body is made up of the undersecretaries of Higher Education and Public Health, the National Disability Service (Senadis) and the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Consumption (Senda), as well as representatives of the universities, Confech, the National Association of Health Students (Anaes) and the Association of Medical Students (Asemech), and in this first meeting their work methodology and deadlines were defined.

The Undersecretary of Public Health, Andrea Albagli, He informed the Council that his portfolio is “working on the construction of the comprehensive mental health bill and this Mental Health Advisory Council for Higher Education will allow input to be provided to this project with regard to the promotion of healthy environments. articulation of training and prevention trajectories”.

The Advisory Council has an Executive Committee chaired by the Division of University Education of the Undersecretary of Higher Education, and its objective is to convene and present the products of each session. Six sessions will be held that will address topics such as mental health prevention, academic modernization and specialized care.

The proposals designed in this instance will serve to prepare the Comprehensive Mental Health Bill, the Academic Modernization Bill and to provide guidance to higher education institutions.