Do You Have to Be a Mental Health Professional to Teach AOM Classes?

One of the most common questions we hear from new users is some version of: "Am I qualified to lead a class about mental health?" It's a super fair question. Mental health is high-stakes territory. And here’s the thing… you absolutely should be a mental health professional if you’re planning to do things like provide concrete advice, diagnosis conditions, or recommend medication.
But that’s not what this is. Art Opening Minds classes are spaces to gently and openly explore topics connected to our mental health. They are built so that anyone who cares about the topic can facilitate a meaningful conversation about it.

How this works

The design of every AOM class solves this in three ways.

1. Our films carry the emotional weight. You're not standing in front of a room trying to explain what depression feels like or asking participants to share their trauma. You're asking them to watch a short film and talk about what they saw. The film does the work of opening up the topic so that the job of the instructor is to hold the conversation that follows from there.
2. Prompts and script you both the framework and some words to use. The script lives right in the speaker notes of the slide deck — open presenter view and the script appears in a separate window. You can literally read it verbatim if you want to (some instructors do, especially their first few times), or use it as a framework and bring your own style. The script includes clinical notes that explain the mental health dimensions of what's being discussed, so you have the context even if you've never studied the topic formally.
3. Contextual notes flag sensitive moments before they arrive. If a film touches on suicidal ideation or sexual violence or substance use, you'll know before it happens and you'll have specific language for framing it safely. This is the part that matters most for people who worry about being "qualified enough": the class doesn't put you in a position where you need to improvise through a heavy moment. The preparation is already built in.

Who uses AOM

A ton of AOM instructors are, in fact, mental health professionals — counselors, clinicians, social workers, psychologists. And when they facilitate an AOM class, they're doing something different from therapy. AOM classes are educational spaces, and even people who provide clinical care in other parts of their day value having a format that's built for exploration and conversation rather than treatment.
Beyond clinicians, AOM instructors come from all over campus: residence life coordinators, academic advisors, student affairs professionals, orientation leaders, Greek life advisors, peer support coordinators, faculty, athletic staff. The thing everyone has in common is that they care about the people they work with and they are looking for meaningful ways to talk about wellbeing. That instinct — the desire to create space for these conversations — is exactly what AOM is built for.

The orientation helps

Before you run your first class, you'll complete a short orientation (30 to 60 minutes) that walks you through the platform, lets you experience a film firsthand, and gives you a feel for what facilitation looks like. It's designed to turn the nervous energy of "can I actually do this?" into the grounded feeling of "okay, I can see how this works." By the end, you'll understand what you're doing and why — which, when it comes to mental health education, matters just as much as any credential.

Tips & Notes

• If you're new to facilitating, start with a smaller group. AOM classes work well with as few as a couple participants, and a smaller room gives you space to find your rhythm.
• The facilitation script is in the speaker notes of the slide deck. Click the three dots under the slides in your class page, and open presenter view. Another window will open that you can keep on your personal screen while the main slides project on the large screen. Some instructors read the script word for word, some glance at it for structure, most land somewhere in between. All of those approaches work.