Against the background of high-quality development of higher vocational education in the new era, it is of great significance to integrate Huang Yanpei’s vocational education thought into the ideological and political construction of mental health education courses. Huang Yanpei’s core concept of “making the unemployed employed and the employed enjoy their work”, as well as his moral education views of “integrating hands and brain” and “dedication and solidarity”, provide profound historical wisdom for higher vocational students to shape a sound personality and form healthy professional psychological quality. Based on the teaching practice of “College Students’ Mental Health Education” and combined with the construction and teaching reform of mental health courses in our college, this paper constructs a practical path for integrating Huang Yanpei’s vocational education thought into ideological and political education in mental health courses in higher vocational colleges from three directions: content reconstruction, teaching innovation and faculty collaboration. Through the overall design of “professional psychology integration module - art therapy experiential teaching - cross-course collaborative education mechanism”, the research realizes the organic integration of mental health education and professional value guidance. Practice shows that this model helps to improve students’ professional identity, psychological adjustment ability and team cooperation awareness, promotes the transformation of mental health education from knowledge imparting to collaborative value guidance and ability cultivation, and assists in cultivating technical and skilled talents with both moral integrity and professional skills.