Supporting social work students facing mental health challenges: reflective experiences by faculty from University of Delhi

ABSTRACT

Mental health is a significant area for social work education and practice as the profession focuses on enhancing the social functioning and well-being of individuals, groups and communities. The field of mental health requires professionals from multidisciplinary fields who undergo rigorous training to acquire the necessary professional knowledge and equip themselves with specific skills. The current paper attempts to situate and reflect the author’s experiences of working with post-graduate social work students in University of Delhi. Through case vignettes, the author presents diverse mental health challenges faced by the students and analyses wide-ranging psychosocial factors that play a significant role in this context. The paper also discusses the implications posed by such challenges on social work education while attempting to make number of suggestions to promote positive mental health among students.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• social work
• students’ challenges
• reflections
• India

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meenu Anand

Meenu Anand teaches at the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi, India. She is passionate about working and researching on gender, mental health and education within interdisciplinary frameworks.