How can practitioner action research support the design, implementation, and evaluation of on-campus mental health and addiction services?

In every sector, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of mental health resources for wellbeing. Although scholars have long recognized the interdependent relationship between academic success and positive mental health, research that can be used to guide mental health service design and delivery in post-secondary institutions is relatively unexplored. Further, the experiences of practitioners, in their day-to-day operations toward understanding and responding to student mental health problems, are an under-recognized source of data that can contribute to more effective planning and implementation. The objective of this project is to use practitioner action research principles to design, implement, and evaluate a mental health and addiction services plan at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. This paper details what occurred in the plan-act-observe-reflect cycles as practitioners gathered qualitative data using interviews and the World Cafe methodology. Results show improvement in student satisfaction ratings with on-campus mental health services. Our experience reveals that practitioner action research is a useful framework for practitioners seeking a systematic process to contribute to both fields of knowledge and fields of practice.