Zenstudies 1: Making a Healthy Transition to Higher Education – Facilitator’s Guide and Participant’s Workbook : Universal Prevention Program

The Zenstudies: Making a Healthy Transition to Higher Education program aims to prevent depression and anxiety among first-year students in post-secondary school.

It includes three modules, or prevention levels. Module 1, presented here, is an in-class universal prevention program, designed to be delivered by a post-secondary instructor, that helps students develop mental-health awareness and understand the transition to higher education, equipping them with preventive strategies so they can successfully adjust.

This first module of Zenstudies endeavours to ease the transition to higher education and thereby lower the risk of dropout, while providing students a better grasp of the issues surrounding internalizing problems, such as anxiety and depression, and equipping them with a few prevention strategies. The facilitator’s guide has been specifically designed for teachers who want to use the program in their classrooms.

The participant’s workbook was developed for students and accompanies the facilitator’s guide, which will be used by your teacher.

In Section 1 of the program, your teacher will give you information about the difficulties of transitioning from high school to college or university; for example, the challenges in the transition to adulthood and the importance of effective time management. Then in Section 2, the teacher will provide indicators that will help you recognize symptoms of anxiety and depression that you might experience during this transition. Finally, in Section 3, you’ll learn a few preventive techniques and strategies for anxiety and depression. The program is accompanied by an online component available via the website of the Research Laboratory on School-Based Mental Health at the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Psychology Department (https://en.labomarcotte.ca). The Rossy and Bell Foundations made the translation of the Zenétudes program in English possible.