Kudos for highlighting college mental health care in Megan Thielking’s front-page article. Decades ago, as a parent, I saw my son’s mistrust of campus mental health services. Now, as a parenting educator, I am concerned about how parents and others support or, more often, fail to support young people’s social and emotional development.

Many colleges and universities, such as MIT, where I worked until retiring several years ago, foster peer support through formal and informal networks, but the article did not mention these worthy initiatives.

If we want to prevent and ease mental health problems, we need a broad-based mental health campaign, addressed to all ages, advocating a wide range of activities to promote emotional well-being. Professional counseling will always be needed in some cases, of course, but we can do much better at helping individuals develop resilience for themselves and willingness to ask for help when they need it. We can also do much better at teaching family members and friends how to support those among us who are struggling.

Eve Sullivan

Cambridge

The writer is the founder of Parents Forum.