Mental health is increasingly gaining attention within academic settings, including at Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM).
As a leading higher education institution in Indonesia, UGM is responsible for ensuring the well-being of its academic community, particularly mental health.
Acknowledging this urgency, UGM took proactive measures by establishing the Mental Health Service Unit (ULKM) on Jul. 1, 2024, to provide mental health support and services to the academic community, especially students.
Mental health screenings conducted by ULKM have revealed an urgent need to raise awareness of mental health and provide appropriate support and interventions.
UGM Rector Professor Ova Emilia revealed that nearly 30-40% of UGM students struggle with mental health issues at various levels, ranging from mild challenges to contemplating suicide.
“We must proactively implement preventive and intervention efforts,” said Professor Emilia at the Mental Health Workshop Series 1, which involved deans in formulating policies to support the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) on mental health in each faculty.
The event occurred on Friday (Oct. 25) at the UGM Central Office. Professor Emilia urged faculty leaders, directorates, and departments to continue preventive efforts to make the campus a pleasant place to pursue education.
On this occasion, Professor Emilia also emphasized the Directorate of Student Affairs’s importance in encouraging students involved in Student Activity Units (UKM) to become buddy counselors due to their close connections with fellow students.
“This even becomes a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for UKM because it’s pointless if, for example, they practice sports to stay healthy, but their friends are stressed—this creates a contradiction,” Professor Emilia remarked.
The rector hopes that the Integrated Health Services Bureau can collaborate with the said directorate to organize training for UKM students to become buddies.
The Dean of the UGM Faculty of Psychology, Dr. Rahmat Hidayat, reported that his research screened the mental health of 41,812 UGM students from all levels, including applied bachelor, undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, and professional programs. This represents 62% of the total student population at UGM.
Dr. Hidayat highlighted one of the biggest challenges in addressing students’ mental health is the variation in faculty and school capacities to provide mental health services and care.
“Not all faculties have mental health teams or psychologists,” he said.
According to Dr. Hidayat, PICs from each faculty and school act as data controllers and case managers for mental health issues, working with faculty psychologists or health units.
Arif Nurcahyo, Head of the Safety, Occupational Health, Emergency, and Environment Office (K5L), serves as a campus mental health first aid responder. He believes that mental health is linked to traffic accidents, medical health issues, and work accidents occurring at UGM.
Based on data from his team’s research from January to September 2024, Nurcahyo noted that some cases were not recorded in screenings but emerged in the field.
“We found that the sources of the issues included toxic relationships with family, friends, or partners, unfriendly lecturers, and other non-technical problems,” he explained.
One challenge faced by K5L is that staff cannot monitor each individual, so additional assistance is needed, especially since many students conceal their mental health history.
Professor Yayi Suryo Prabandari, Chair of the UGM Health Promoting University (HPU UGM), stated that HPU UGM provides various health services accessible to students, ranging from counseling services to mental health improvement programs to create a well-being campus.
“We have even conducted first-aider training for lecturers and staff, as well as anti-toxic relationship training,” said Professor Prabandari.
She hopes that cross-unit collaboration can form an integrated reporting system through leveling or clustering, allowing mental health care to become a systematic network.
Meanwhile, Dwi Umi Siswati, Coordinator of the Faculty of Biology Counselor Lecturers, shared best practices from the Faculty of Biology in addressing mental health.
The faculty chose to involve students as buddy counselors because students tend to be more open with their peers.
“We have trained these buddies to serve as empathetic listeners, capable of providing social support and helping their peers cope with emotional difficulties,” she concluded.
Author: Triya Andriyani
Photographer: Donnie
Post-editor: Afif