Inlight Toolkit for Student Engagement in Mental Health Research
Written by Joanna Roy
My name is Joanna Roy and this past summer, I worked with Inlight to develop a Toolkit for Student Engagement in Mental Health Research. In this article, I will talk about the process of creating the toolkit, some key learnings, and how I hope this work can be extended to other fields of research in the future.
Students Should be Involved in Research that Affects Them
The goal of student engagement is to position students as active collaborators rather than passive participants in student mental health research, since they are the community most affected by its outcomes.
For research projects, engaging students leads to more relevant and impactful outcomes, strengthens trust between students and their institutions, and can even open up new funding opportunities. For students, being involved in research is empowering, instills a sense of hope, and creates opportunities to influence treatments and programs that directly address their needs and those of their peers.
Students can be involved at any stage of the research project: advising on the scope of research, shaping participant interactions (e.g. creating comfortable spaces in interviews), co-developing resources (eg. research protocols, funding proposals, knowledge translation materials), or recommending actions based on research findings; and while this collaboration can take many forms, the toolkit focuses primarily on involving students through advisory committees.
My hopes for this toolkit were to:
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- Make the process of student engagement more accessible to both researchers and students, ensuring that both groups benefit from the experience.
- Help researchers connect with students and onboard them effectively into their research projects.
- Create opportunities for students to provide feedback, both during and after their involvement.
- Support students throughout the engagement process, helping them set boundaries and navigate difficult topics.
- Create a toolkit general enough to be used across various research projects, irrespective of their format or research focus.
I also hoped it would serve as a tool to raise awareness and advocate for more intentional community engagement within academic and research communities – student engagement (and, more generally, engaging relevant community members) does take a bit of extra effort, but is well-worthwhile for the benefits it brings to both research projects and the communities who are engaged.
Developing the toolkit
I started by meeting with various researchers, educators, and students to gather their insights on student engagement — whether in research, courses, extracurriculars, or other related fields they had expertise in. These were some key themes from my conversations:
- Focusing on the human side of engagement: Both educators and researchers emphasized the importance of building genuine connections with students. One comment, in particular, stuck with me: “The more you level with students, the more they will level with you back.” The consultations highlighted that building trust is essential for gathering meaningful feedback and creating productive relationships with students.
- Ensuring psychological safety: Engaging students in mental health research requires creating an environment of psychological safety — often moreso than in many other fields since mental health is already a challenging, often stigmatized, topic. Through the consultations, we compiled several strategies for fostering a space where students feel safe and supported in expressing themselves.
- Ease of use: The toolkit had to be simple and accessible for it to be impactful. One consultation suggested we create a “Student Engagement for Dummies.” Keeping the toolkit straightforward and accessible to researchers who have many competing priorities was challenging but important.
- Collecting feedback: Nearly everyone I spoke with highlighted the importance of collecting both formal and informal feedback from students throughout their engagement with the project. Iterating on both project structures and student engagement practices based on student feedback is [crucial for students to feel valued and to fully realize] the benefits of student engagement.
Once I finished the consultations, I developed the toolkit’s templates—such as sample onboarding presentations and email drafts—and presented them to the Inlight student advisory committee and some of the researchers and educators I had spoken with earlier. I then refined these resources based on their feedback, and created the main toolkit document. The toolkit’s format evolved considerably over these few months, and feedback from the student advisory committee members, in particular, was invaluable in shaping the toolkit to its current form.
Incorporating these Lessons Into the Toolkit
One of the biggest challenges in developing this toolkit was ensuring it was adaptable to a wide range of research projects. Student mental health research projects often vary significantly in scope, timelines, and areas where student engagement can have the greatest impact—for instance, an advisory committee might work well for one project, while individual student interviews might be more effective for another. I tried to balance providing enough detail to be practical and maintaining enough flexibility to accommodate diverse contexts.
Facilitating student engagement can be difficult – particularly in the context of mental health, student engagement needs to be approached with care; and even with the toolkit, researchers will have to invest considerable effort to realize its benefits in their projects. It was challenging to create a resource that acknowledges the challenges researchers may encounter, while also empowering them to navigate these obstacles – to make the case that: yes, this will be hard, but it will also be well-worth the effort it requires because of its numerous benefits.
Moving Forward
Developing this toolkit was an incredibly rewarding experience. Mental health, mentorship, and meaningful community engagement are all topics that mean a lot to me, so I’m thankful for the opportunity to work on this project and to Inlight for supporting this type of work – in particular, Emma McCann for meeting with me every week and providing inspiration for so many of these resources; the Inlight Student Advisory Committee members for their consistent thoughtful feedback on the resources throughout their development; and Amanda Uliaszek for overseeing the studentship project.
Ultimately, my goal with this toolkit was to create greater awareness of student engagement within the academic and research communities. Beyond student mental health research, I hope the toolkit principles can be extended to other areas, such as meaningful community engagement in the development of technologies, policies, and any other research fields that could benefit from it. I hope it encourages more researchers to work with community members as collaborators in their work, and that it provides them with the tools they need to make that happen.
