On-campus resources help maintain student mental health

Every year, 1,100 college students lose their young lives to suicide, according to activeminds.org. Countless more suffer from depression, anxiety and other various mental afflictions, affecting every area of their lives. As mental health begins to take center stage in the community as a legitimate and significant concern, college campuses have an obligation to protect their students, and Wayne State has not neglected this responsibility.

WSU?s Counseling and Psychological Services offers everything from workshops to individual counseling, and works to ensure students have the resources they need to maintain their psychiatric well being. CAPS provides professionally trained counselors, a welcoming environment and numerous consultation services ? but perhaps most significantly, their services are free and confidential for all currently enrolled WSU students.

?Everything here is considered a medical record, so it?s locked tight the way that medical records are,? said Lynn Hill, Interim Director of CAPS. ?It?s completely confidential and separate from any educational record ? so if somebody wrote to the school and said ?We need all of your records,? these would not be included in those. It?s very different from FERPA, which is the law that covers educational records; this is HIPAA, which is the law that covers medical records. That?s something that people are always glad to hear ? that what goes on here is confidential ? and of course, they?re happy to hear that it?s free.?

CAPS offers workshops several times a week focusing on various subjects, including anger management, depression, anxiety and self-esteem improvement. Students are welcome to anonymously visit these one-time sessions to gather information about various topics. In addition, CAPS offers individual, couples and group counseling, as well as crisis intervention services and outreach educational presentations.

?We do a lot of outreach; that?s one of the big things we do, outreach presentations,? Hill said. ?So sometimes a sorority or fraternity might call us or one of the departments might call us and say, ?Will you come and talk to our class or to our department about?? and then they?ll ask about a topic. An example might be that we?ve partnered with the Academic Success Center to give presentations on test anxiety,? Hill said.

A popular service currently offered by CAPS, ?Let?s Talk,? invites students to simply drop in to a location at a certain time for one-time anonymous consultations with a trained counselor. From the Honors College to the Law School, the locations are within minutes from a student?s daily walks, and offer an anonymous listening ear to stressed-out individuals simply wishing for someone to talk to.

?The brief history is that Cornell University came up with the idea Let?s Talk. It provides free consultations to students in an anonymous way. When you come to CAPS, you give your name, and you have an evaluation and you see a counselor. If you go to Let?s Talk you do not necessarily have to give your name. You can drop in and say ?I broke up with my boyfriend, this is what?s happening, do you have any suggestions?? And the counselor might discuss something with you and then may or may not suggest that you come to CAPS,? Hill said.

If a student does wish to speak with a counselor on a weekly basis, they would be required to visit CAPS and complete an assessment and evaluation to assign them to one of CAPS?s many counselors. A counselor is generally assigned unless the student requires services that CAPS does not provide; referrals would be given in the cases of need for daily counseling and around-the-clock crisis intervention. However, it is significant to understand that mental health issues affect every student, Hill said.

?As far as what major somebody has, or family they come from, or what background they come from, I don?t think that that matters,? Hill said. ?One of the key things is mechanisms for self-care and coping with stress, and we do a lot with helping people figure that out ? how to take care of themselves and how to manage stress, so we have a lot of workshops that address those things
and sometimes the counselors address those things too. What we?ve found is that people who do counseling tend to stay in school if they were thinking of dropping out of school,? Hill said.

Hill also emphasized the enormous amount of misinformation and mis-education present in the community concerning mental health, and advocates for the increase of education both in the community and on college campuses. The administration at WSU, however, truly recognizes the significance of mental health, leading to the staff and building expansion of CAPS in the past several years.

In CAPS? early years, counselors were forced to refer students elsewhere simply due to lack of resources. Since its expansion, CAPS now services over 200 students per week, excluding workshops. This impressive number represents the growth in respect for mental health in the general public.

?The administration in the past two years has really put a much higher value on this department, because they recognize if students come here, they are more likely to be successful students,? Hill said. ?So it?s a well-used service, and there?s a very high demand for counseling services on this campus. It?s actually something that?s extremely popular.?

Centers like CAPS are proving day after day that the future of mental health awareness is not bleak. Students should not be forced to hide and suffer from mental disorders, and WSU recognizes this absurdity. Mental health is not a topic that can be ?swept under the rug? in the community, and services on college campuses like CAPS are working to ensure that mental health remains a primary concern of the public.

Source: http://thesouthend.wayne.edu/article/2013/03/on-campus-resources-help-maintain-student-mental-health

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