UB receives SUNY grant to support student mental health and well-being

UB has received an $8,000 SUNY Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) Grant to provide faculty, staff, students and community members with the tools and resources necessary to support students in mental health crises.

The funding will support creation and expansion of campus MHFA programming, including instructor certification, delivery of campuswide training, required materials and outreach efforts to strengthen mental health literacy. The training emphasizes early recognition, supportive response and connection to professional help.

“The grants provided through this innovative program will help ensure more SUNY staff and personnel are trained to recognize and address mental health concerns and to support students in need,” SUNY Chancellor John B. King said in a recent press release.

The new program awarded grants to 27 SUNY campuses.

This funding supports SUNY’s ongoing commitment to funding for mental health support across SUNY. In 2024, Gov. Kathy Hochul awarded $1 million to UB to expand mental health efforts, which was used to hire several new counselors embedded in academic units and broadened virtual and teletherapy services.  

UB is using the new grant to equip four staff members to provide higher education-specific MHFA training, which prioritizes the unique needs of college students.

“Mental health first aid gives UB students the power to show up for each other in real ways,” says Amy Falvo, assistant vice president for health and wellness. “It helps us create a campus community of care in which talking about mental health is natural, support is easy to find and everyone knows they are not alone.”

Anna Sotelo-Peryea, associate director of health promotion, led the team that worked on the grant application and will coordinate the university’s MHFA training.

“We’re training a team of trainers,” Sotelo-Peryea says. “This includes our violence prevention outreach and peer education coordinator from Health Promotion, our alcohol and other drug harm reduction coordinator, our stress management program coordinator and a mental health counselor at Counseling Services."

Sotelo-Peryea wants families and students to know that UB is committed to strengthening the university’s capacity for prevention, harm reduction and belonging in a way that equips students and faculty with the ability to provide helpful support in the very moment of need.

“Early recognition of when there might be something amiss — and then figuring out how to provide that supportive response and connection to professional support when needed — is a really strong tool,” Sotelo-Peryea says. “Creating a campus-spanning network of supports is what we’re really trying to do here.”

She explains that stress continues to be a main obstacle for students.

“One of the things that we know from our National College Health Assessment here at UB is that stress has been the number one impact listed by our students as an impediment to their academic success,” she says.

Sotelo-Peryea also notes how culture can shape perceptions about mental health and that biases and stigma can play a significant role in how students access mental health support on campus. This initiative is intended to teach students positive communication skills that can help foster connections with their peers and increase students’ empathy so that mental health and substance misuse aren’t stigmatized.

“What we’re really hoping to see at UB by implementing these initiatives is an increase in mental health literacy,” she says. “We want the community to have a better understanding of mental health, for there to be less stigma and more confidence around the topic and to increase the likelihood to help someone when they’re in distress.”

For more information on UB’s mental health and counseling support, visit the Counseling Services website.