It’s a typical Monday. Bags are packed with laptops and textbooks, and students are walking back and forth from classes, talking to friends, or studying for the midterms. Among the hustle of college life, it’s easy to forget to prioritize mental and physical health, but DSC provides convenient short-term solutions to that.
Since 1957, DSC has come a long way, not only in terms of education opportunities, but also accessibility, counseling, and academic advising opportunities.
The Counseling & Accessibility Services (CAS) department began in 2003, and since then they’ve aimed to help students successfully continue or return to the college by providing appropriate counseling for many needs.
“It is good,” said Jordan Charles, a culinary major at DSC. “Most colleges don’t offer counseling, so it is very helpful that it does offer it.”
According to the CAS homepage, “Services include personal counseling, assessments, crisis stabilization, and community referral.” Along with that, it’s free to currently enrolled DSC students.
CAS provides help and advice for many areas of a student’s life, such as family crises, disorganization, and concerns. They also provide counseling for college adjustment, depression, anxiety, and lack of motivation.
“If I was at a session, I would want the environment to be very confidential,” said Bruce Kozak, a psychology professor at DSC and a past mental health and family/couple’s counselor. “I would want the student to be able to express their thoughts and feelings and receive non-judgmental feedback.”
DSC counseling services are 100% confidential between the student and counselor. They also advertise their desire for students to be open and honest in the sessions.
Every student is allowed to have six scheduled or unscheduled sessions at the CAS, though the student may use more sessions. Afterwards, if a student is still in distress or requires additional counseling, they will be referred to a mental health community provider, though that is not typically a necessity.
Within CAS there is also Substance Abuse Awareness: Think Twice, Get Advice and a past grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHA) called Project SPEAK, both of which target influential areas of impact on a person’s life and mental health, as well as academics.
Substance Abuse Awareness is an annual program started by Leslie Fehl, who is now the Assistant Chair of the School of Dental Science. Inside the program there is substance abuse counseling throughout the duration of the project. This year, the program had an area set up on March 11 at the Falcon Spring Fest.
At the booth there were several activities, “he (a staff member) had a table full of activities, for example, drunk goggles that students could come in and put on then go around cones,” said director of CAS, Miguel Rivera. “He also had an education game that he had jars of water but then put the number of alcohol level on each and had them (students) guess.”
While the grant from Project SPEAK ended last year, the main focus of Project Speak was to give awareness to mental health and suicide prevention to college attendees, and CAS has made an effort to continue the work they put in while having Project SPEAK. “We did, again, QPR (question, persuade, refer) training,” said Rivera. “We did certify quite a few students and faculty and staff to become gatekeepers, which means that if anybody, any student, has to see a student or deal with any thoughts, they know where to go.”
While brushing off mental stability for academics may be easy for some, it may actually impact that aspect as well. According to Mental Health First Aid, “across the United States, over 45% of college students are struggling with their mental health, contributing to soaring degree incompletion rates of 39%.”
Project Speak showed the science behind mental struggles, how to ask questions safely if it’s a difficult question, and, if necessary, find a way to help the person find more help, either through someone who can help them more directly or through the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (988).
While the CAS offers short-term solutions, they open the door to long-term ones, such as a mental health community provider, as they try to offer as much support as they can on campus and off.
Rivera said, “We just want to make sure that the DSC college students know that we’re not just here for a crisis, we’re here every day just to support students.”