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Illinois Mental Health Access on College Campuses Learning Collaborative Resource Guide

IL Mental Health Webpage

Campus Mental Health Supports Resource for Illinois Colleges and Universities

YI and NAMI Chicago are proud to release the Mental Health Learning Collaborative Resource Guide. This free online resource is for Illinois colleges and universities that would like advice, insights, tools, and more as they enhance their campus mental health supports for students. 

In 2019, Illinois enacted a law requiring public higher education institutions to implement the Mental Health Early Action on Campus Act to improve and expandcollege students walking on campus mental health services and supports for students. The Illinois Board of Higher Education was tasked to create a technical assistance center to help institutions with implementing the Act, but because of a lack of state funding, the campus supports and the technical assistance center have yet to materialize. 

While state legislators work on securing the funds necessary to fully implement the law, Young Invincibles Midwest and NAMI Chicago partnered on a new venture: the Illinois Mental Health Access on College Campuses Learning Collaborative. The Collaborative was a platform for resource sharing, discussions, presentations, and student feedback on provisions of the Act. The Collaborative convened Illinois public colleges and universities five times between November 2021 – June 2022 on various topics such as peer-to-peer programs, cultural humility, leveraging community providers, and much more.

These fruitful conversations yielded a multitude of resources and information. To share out all the collective knowledge, the Resource Guide is now available

Contact Lily Rocha, Midwest Regional Director for Young Invincibles, at lily.rocha@younginvincibles.org with any questions on this guide or this work. 

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