Mental Health Literacy Education | Psychology Today

Mental health literacy can overcome the reticence to talk about mental health and well-being. The Mental Health Literacy Collaborative, founded in 2023, has promoted and popularized an education framework of mental health literacy. This framework was originally developed in Canada for a better understanding of mental health and to avoid problems before they manifest.

Before treatment and cure

The usual mantra is “Prevention is better than cure”—which in the contemporary political environment might morph into “Prevention is cheaper than cure.” Mental health literacy provides a framework comprising four components that can be implemented simultaneously. Then, mental health is addressed before treatment or a cure is needed, saving lives (and money).

The first component is fostering and promoting positive approaches to mental health and well-being. Conversing about the topic is important, folded within openness and honesty about related aspects, notably emotions, relationships, feelings, and behavior. Providing opportunities to constructively deal with negative mental health and well-being while creating possibilities for positivity offers choices and support in making decisions.

The second key is early response to mental health and well-being concerns. Understanding mental health and well-being conditions, their signs and symptoms, mental health first aid, and what others can and cannot do when signs and symptoms are recognized leads to responding to difficulties at their initial stage. Adequate referrals and interventions can be swift. Then, the individual and those around them can look for and find effective assistance—the framework’s third component—in order to meet their mental health needs.

Education—which presents the fourth component—is paramount, particularly to overcome reluctance to deal with mental health and well-being. Mental health literacy can be brought into the classroom from early childhood education through to continuing professional development. Then, vocabulary, discussions, and opportunities for noticing and solving any challenges become engrained within day-to-day life and culture.

And these four components reinforce each other: The quartet is essential for complete mental health literacy.

Mental health education across the U.S.

In a paper led by the Mental Health Literacy Collaborative, published earlier this year in the American Journal of Health Education, the authors focused on the U.S. They examined mental health in American education policies, laws, and standards, covering national, state, and local initiatives. They highlighted that New York’s 2016 law was the first in the country to institute mandatory mental health education.

The paper details two state-led policies. Delaware incorporates mental health into education from kindergarten through to final-year secondary school, enfolded within a variety of well-being topics. On the opposite coast, California starts in the early teenage years, with mental health topics as part of health education through to graduation.

The political and educational power of states is demonstrated. As the federal-level Department of Education experiences massive cuts, more decision-making and implementation is being left to the states. They have the chance to incorporate the mental health literacy framework’s four components together.

Whether or not more states use this power wisely by accepting the importance of mental health literacy and education remains to be seen. The paper explained that Arizona and Illinois have mental health education within their schools’ health education curriculum yet permit parents to remove their children from these classes.

Lack of funding is identified as a particularly prominent barrier to mental health education across the country. California and Delaware do not allocate specific funding for implementing their policies. Meanwhile, frequent, consistent, independent, formal monitoring and evaluation are typically lacking for any policy. It is not always evident how well the mental health education initiatives are carried out, nor how effective they are.

Beyond the U.S.

The Mental Health Literacy Collaborative seeks to fill in the gaps, offering training that will be adapted for other countries. Transferring it to, and adjusting it for, the rest of the world means contextualizing and applying the U.S.-focused empirical lessons for other countries while bringing global knowledge and expertise to the U.S. From Uganda to Japan, different approaches to expressing and addressing mental health and well-being concerns contribute to improving literacy, education, and action.