Supportive Accountability in Mental-health Mentoring of Young Adults (SAMMY-A) also known as Wellness Coaching for College Students

For this project, we are collaborating with Jean Rhodes and various community partners at UMass Boston, which has one of the most diverse student bodies in US higher education (65% identify as BIPOC, 53% as first-generation college students, 51% are Pell Grant eligible, 10% are international students. The team has been developing and testing a mental health and academic promotion program for marginalized students, through staff and peer mentoring. These interventions integrate supportive accountability and skills practice into college academic advising relationships through a newly developed app that connects to other wellbeing-promoting apps like Headspace, SuperBetter, and Intellicare. Lack of user-engagement is common among these mental health apps, a problem that may be exacerbated by barriers and stigma impacting various  socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups. Our team has implemented the smartphone app (MentorHub, and later MentorPro), which leverages the support and scaffolding from academic advisors to incorporate intentional skill-building and accountability to build improved academic and mental health outcomes. This is particularly crucial for the low-income, marginalized, and academically at-risk students within UMass Boston in order to help reduce the achievement gap many of these students face, particularly during remote-learning environments resulting from COVID-19. This app provides the platform for students and advisors to check-in, review progress toward goals, and encourage continued app use. We conducted a feasibility trial and may later conduct a full randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of the program in improving college student mental health and academic outcomes among at-risk college students and their academic advisors at University of Massachusetts Boston. 

 

We are currently working on quantitative and qualitative analysis and manuscript preparation for this project. ​​