The Wellness Center is piloting a new program in which students are guaranteed weekly individual counseling sessions as well as coordination of clinical, personal, and academic support.
The Wellness Extended Support Program was developed in response to national trends regarding the prevalence of college student mental health concerns.
As in previous years, the Wellness Center continues to provide short-term counseling, ongoing group counseling, and walk-in crisis intervention to full-time undergraduate students at no cost, as well as assistance in connecting students with off-campus mental health services if longer term or more specialized treatment is recommended or preferred by the student.
Students have previously never been guaranteed weekly appointments with a counselor and staff determine the total number of sessions available to a student on a case-by-case basis. However, while the short-term counseling model typically does not exceed eight to ten sessions, Wellness Center staff have noted that students usually only attend an average of five or six sessions.
Nonetheless, the new program aims to expand the frequency of counseling sessions available to students. Though there is a fee associated with the program, several scholarships will be available for students who would not otherwise be able to afford the program.
Approximately 12 students are currently enrolled in the new program.
Editor’s note: A previous article, entitled “New Wellness Center policy limits counseling sessions” and published in the Nov. 8 print issue, originally attempted to report on the new program. However, the information to write that article was gathered from a WESP sign-up form and the article largely focused on student reactions. During the fact-checking process, the editorial team contacted the Wellness Center and SASS office front desks, as opposed to more diligently reaching out to the directors of either department. As a result, the article misrepresented the new program and failed to portray accurate information. We deeply regret the error and would like to apologize to both our readers and the Wellness Center staff for any potential distress the published article may have caused. The information in this new article was provided by Dean Liz Towle in her Nov. 14 email to undergraduate students.
