Psychosocial Swiss Cheese: A model for supporting student mental health and wellbeing in higher education

Abstract

Students experience higher levels of stress, anxiety, and feelings of isolation during their transition into higher education, which are exacerbated for students with minoritized and marginalized identities. These challenges are not limited to those surrounding their academic progress but also include several factors that impact their social and emotional wellbeing. Therefore, higher education instructors play a key role in implementing Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) to support students’ psychosocial health and create affirming, identity-honoring environments where all students’ needs are met. Using an adapted version of Reason’s Swiss Cheese Model (2000), we present a framework for providing layered social and emotional support to address CASEL’s core competencies within the higher education landscape. The article describes the importance of each layer, along with examples of strategies we’ve found to be successful. We aim to emphasize the importance of each layer as a component of a larger application system for the SEL Framework and contribute valuable insights that can reshape how postsecondary instructors approach overall student wellbeing in inclusive ways.