How the faculty across higher education institutes are facilitated to develop skills on student mental health and well-being?–A scoping review

Students in higher education institutes (HEI) often face mental health issues that challenge their well-being. Faculty members, as crucial points of contact for academic programmes, play a pivotal role in supporting their well-being. Some HEIs offer training programmes to support the faculty in this role. We conducted a scoping review to examine such faculty training programmes by considering data from four of the 10,362 studies and 21 university sources for analysis. Synthesizing the data, we identified the components, format, mode, and evaluation of faculty training programmes. The components were based on the RAKSHAKA framework, which includes resources, affective skills, knowledge in recognising students in distress, severity identification of mental health issues, health promotion, assistance and support strategies, knowledge on roles and boundaries, and access to student services. The proposed framework would provide academics and HEI administrators a reference for implementing faculty training programmes to support student mental health and well-being.