Welcome to Life after Leave: The Intersection of Mental Health, Education, and Successful Futures - a blog by the Cole Resource Center Workforce team, clients, and volunteers.
A Gentle Note if You Are on Leave
If you are currently on leave from school for mental health, or considering stepping away, please know this: you are not behind, and you are not broken. Taking a pause can be an act of strength and survival. The hard part is what comes next, especially if you are facing expectations to bounce back quickly or disappear quietly. You deserve something different: you deserve informed choice, agency, and self-actualization.
If you are not sure where to start, here are three steps that can make the next chapter feel less overwhelming.
First, define what stability looks like for you right now, not what it used to look like. That might be a consistent sleep schedule, taking medication regularly, getting outside twice a week, or showing up to one supportive conversation.
Second, choose one anchor activity that is small and repeatable. A a routine walk, a weekly support group, a creative practice, very-part-time volunteer role, reading 10 pages or working on a puzzle for 20 minutes a day - anything you feel you can realistically sustain. Momentum often returns through structure, not pressure.
Third, seek support that matches the real challenge. Therapy and medication can be essential. You may also need help rebuilding confidence, routines, and a practical path forward, step by step, with people who understand and will offer you both support and accountability. Make a list of things that you’d like accountability/presence/assistance with (eating breakfast, doing laundry, taking a walk, etc.) and when well-meaning friends and family ask what they can do for you, you’ll be prepared to let them know one small way that they can help you.
At CRC, we are here for our peers who are navigating this moment.
If you feel like you are on a life raft and looking for the shore, we are here to talk through next steps, explore options, or simply provide community.
About Our New Service and This Blog
Stepping away from school for mental health reasons is an act of self-care, often instrumental to survival. It is a meaningful health decision and - for many - the first time they have chosen for themselves in a long time. But once the paperwork is done and classmates continue on the path you had also intended to walk, the question of “What next?” is inevitable. You might feel relief, grief - or both. You’ve gained the time and space to recover, but lost structure, interaction with friends, stimulation - and possibly also your housing, insurance, and other ways to meet basic needs.
To someone who has never lived those emotions, the experience is impossible to explain. Cole Resource Center is committed to supporting the needs of our peers who find themselves in this situation. We will launch this new service in Spring 2026. In preparation for the launch, we have created this blog to start the conversation.
This blog series will open next week with an overview of the research that illuminates the consequences of what is lost when individuals have recovered their health but are not supported to find a personally meaningful pathway forward - the intersection at which the peer-to-peer approach makes all the difference.
Future posts focus on the systems of medical leave, mental health, and education and include personal stories of navigating these systems, CRC survey results about what individuals are looking for from their families, friends, schools, and support networks, practical advice for those who may currently be on or considering taking leave, and more .