Leaving home for what may be the first time and settling into an apartment or dormitory without parents or siblings can be exhilarating for college students. It can also leave them anxious and emotional.
Easing the first-year transition and alleviating stress and anxiety are among the reasons why colleges and universities are trying to improve campus-based mental health outreach.
Mental health services at schools across the country are responding to more demand for help and increased expectations. In Rhode Island, several universities have stepped up efforts to respond appropriately for students, faculty or staff who are under stress or in crisis.
The
University of Rhode Island is participating in a nationwide initiative, begun by The Jed Foundation, that is designed to help schools strengthen their mental health, substance-misuse and suicide-prevention responses and programs.
Roger Williams University and the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth also are participants, according to the Jed Foundation website.
Among its efforts since 2017, URI has had more than 1,200 faculty members, staff and students participate in “Mental Health First Aid,” which teaches them to identify and respond appropriately to indications of mental illness or substance-use disorders in others.
A stronger outreach effort during orientation led to an immediate response.
In September, URI had a 72% increase in the number of students visiting the university counseling center, compared with September 2018, according to Robert Samuels, the center’s director.
He attributed part of that increase to more outreach to students, but Generation Z, the moniker given to the generation now in college, is experiencing more stress and other mental health challenges than previous students.
A more positive reason for that is that the stigma of seeking help has started to fade, Samuels said.
Stress is the most frequently cited problem, followed by depression and anxiety.
“There absolutely does seem to be a change,” Samuels said. “One change is that there have been some earlier interventions. And students who would not ordinarily have made it to college are getting the necessary supports. Students are getting psychological support in high school at a greater rate and that is enabling them to come to college.”
What has changed for young people since the 1970s, ’80s or ’90s? Plenty of new stressors are making students more anxious, according to Samuels and other mental health experts, including the 24-7 presence of personal technology.
A generation ago, the news came in the morning newspaper and the evening news. Now, news about stress-inducing events comes instantaneously through smartphone alerts.
“Everything that happens in the world, the students get bombarded with, round the clock,” Samuels said.
But when he’s suggested that they put the phones away, to give themselves a break, students have demurred. “When I talk to young people about putting down their cellphone or even turning it off, it’s as if I’m asking them to cut off their arm. To them, it made it clear I did not understand the role that being connected through social media plays.”
URI’s counseling center has about 10 counselors to handle students’ needs, as well as a post-doctoral fellow and advanced trainees. The university added one clinician last year.
Across the country, universities are doing likewise. In a recent report, The New York Times described programs initiated by more than a dozen universities or colleges trying to meet mental health demands.
UCLA has created a program of “resilience peers,” fellow students who aren’t professionals but who are available to lend an empathetic ear. Kent State University in Ohio has added nine clinical staff members to its campuses.
Students don’t always need an intervention through a counselor or a clinical professional. Sometimes they just need basic help, or help in connecting to their new communities.
Providence College has developed a faculty-led program promoting student resilience called the Riccobono Academic Resilience Faculty Fellowship Program.
One of the fellows is professor Nuria Alonso-Garcia, chairwoman of PC’s Global Studies Department. Alonso-Garcia said she is working with her students to be resilient, both as professionals and as people.
As a professor, she’s exploring ways to “prepare students to not only be academically competent but also … nurture their humanity.”
People need to be a part of a community and to have that connection to have mental health, she said, and the teaching and curriculum of her classes foster that connection.
“This idea of resilience is very relevant to our lives and the lives of those with whom we work,” she said. “Whether they are immigrants in the U.S. or in … Latin America.”
PC also is working under a federal grant to develop a comprehensive program around wellness and suicide prevention, a spokesman said.
At URI, the Mental Health First Aid training has involved not only staff and faculty but fellow students as well, said Ellen Reynolds, the assistant vice president of student wellness and director of health services.
“It helps them to better identify someone who might be having a mental health issue or be in crisis, and appropriately guide them to the resource that might be able to help them,” Reynolds said. “It breaks down to actual behaviors … be it disturbed writing, an email communication or a behavior in the classroom, and where they can refer that student.”
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com
