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RSSMental Health Needs Grow at Colleges – NY Times Article
This well written article encapsulates what so many of us know: Good proactive mental health on college and univeristy campuses is vital and lifesaving. Read on for more news and information of some positive outcomes of counselors and campuses that “get it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/health/20campus.html
Mental Health Needs Seen Growing at Colleges
By TRIP GABRIEL
STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Rushing a student to a psychiatric emergency room is never routine, but when Stony Brook University logged three trips in three days, it did not surprise Jenny Hwang, the director of counseling.
It was deep into the fall semester, a time of mounting stress with finals looming and the holiday break not far off, an anxiety all its own.
On a Thursday afternoon, a freshman who had been scraping bottom academically posted thoughts about suicide on Facebook. If I were gone, he wrote, would anybody notice? An alarmed student told staff members in the dorm, who called Dr. Hwang after hours, who contacted the campus police. Officers escorted the student to the county psychiatric hospital.
There were two more runs over that weekend, including one late Saturday night when a student grew concerned that a friend with a prescription for Xanax, the anti-anxiety drug, had swallowed a fistful.
On Sunday, a supervisor of residence halls, Gina Vanacore, sent a BlackBerry update to Dr. Hwang, who has championed programs to train students and staff members to intervene to prevent suicide.
