Who We Are

The Support Network partners with campuses and students to build peer support programs that promote student mental health and well-being.

Our Approach

Launch: Starting a student-led program on campus can be tricky, especially one focused on mental health. TSN provides the blueprint and coaching to make it happen, partnering with ambitious students and motivated administrators to establish Support Networks and build campus communities that promote well-being.

Develop: TSN’s organizational guidance is supported by professional expertise in program management, psychology and mental health, data analytics, fundraising, marketing and nonprofit administration. Our campus advisory setup helps organizations both scale and stick around for the long haul.

Collaborate: As a hub for peer support initiatives, TSN facilitates connections between campuses, Support Network alumni, national and local mental health organizations, and members of the general public who are interested in our mission.

Help TSN reach $25k by May 15th!

Our goal is to raise $25,000 by midnight on May 15th, the midpoint of Mental Health Awareness Month, which recognizes both how far we've come and how far we have to go as we fight to make peer support available on every campus in the U.S.

If you join us for our Mental Health Panel on Tuesday May 14th, you'll hear directly from students who have been impacted by our programs—students who have bravely volunteered to tell their stories in order to educate people on the ways peer support can change a student's entire college experience and even save lives.

We hope you'll help us realize these goals by contributing as we work to raise $25,000 by May 15th. Every donation moves us closer to our goal!

Your donation makes a difference:

$2,000 funds one semester of TSN’s virtual student conference, bringing current Support Network students together to build community and share best practices. $4,000 funds two semesters.

$10,000 funds a new alumni mentoring and career development initiative, creating a national Support Network community and investing in the next generation of mental health professionals, advocates, and leaders.

$12,000 funds TSN’s expansion efforts as we work to bring peer support programs to more campuses across the country in the coming year.

$22,000 funds the development and pilot of a new curriculum for Student Leaders that incorporates expanded facilitation training, additional de-stigmatization and DEI activities, and updated resources post-pandemic.

Students Are Struggling—But They're Also The Solution

In the midst of what has been declared a national loneliness epidemic, students are grappling with academic and social pressures, economic insecurity, ongoing existential threats, and struggling to find community in a post-pandemic world. With classes back in person, many of us had hoped to see improvements in student mental health. But this past year a study of 90,000 students across 133 U.S. campuses found that students are experiencing record levels of anxiety, depression, and despair:

A report by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation found that 40% of college students had recently considered dropping out of school, with “emotional stress” cited as the most common reason.

But there is hope: students themselves are in a unique position to normalize mental illness and reduce stigma amongst their peers, dismantling cultural barriers while providing community to one another. The obstacles that can prevent students from seeking on-campus treatment—wait times, insurance concerns, stigma—are mitigated in a free and accessible peer-to-peer format, with peers able to refer one another to clinical services and act as a first line of prevention in a campus’ efforts to improve student wellbeing. That's where The Support Network comes in. With programs across eight campuses, we hear stories every day of how our peer-led support netoworks provide spaces for belonging, vulnerability, and connection not found anywhere else on campus.

Wolverine Support Network Post-Surveys, 2023. Based on respondents who filled out the end of semester surveys.

"There were people there to listen"

Just last month a student at Purdue University told us about why she joined Boilermaker Support Network her freshman year. I liked knowing that there were people there to listen, she said, Just having people on campus - the idea that someone is physically there to listen.

Later that day our team was going through survey responses from student facilitators when we came across one from the University of Michigan:

I had to talk to my roommate who had been contemplating suicide and experiencing major depression, and I was able to help her decide to make an appointment with a therapist in Ann Arbor last year.

These two experiences perfectly capture why Support Networks are so important - they empower students to take care of their own and each other’s mental health, in all different types of situations. For some students, this means simply having a place to belong as they transition to campus life. For others, our programs provide connections that literally save lives.

TSN has big goals for 2024: Bringing peer support to more campuses, strengthening our networks, ensuring the sustainability of our mission through additional expertise and capacity.

Each donation brings us closer to a world where every student has a peer support program on their campus, where everyone has someone physically there to listen in times of joy and despair.

We hope you'll join us in reaching more students and saving more lives, together.

Together We Can Save More Lives In 2024

Help TSN Bring Peer Support To More Students!

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