Widener Expands Mental Health Support with New Grant-Funded Initiatives

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Widener Expands Mental Health Support with New Grant-Funded Initiatives

Junior Damya Walton, left, talks with Associate Dean of Students Catherine Feminella and Staff Counselor Emily Randall in the Counseling and Psychological Services office.

Jennifer Horowitz co-chairs the CARE team with Feminella.

As a resident assistant in Howell Hall, junior mechanical engineering major Ella Sprankle was a helper and sounding board for fellow undergraduate students who lived on her hall last year. That meant everything from helping them contact Campus Safety when they were locked out of their rooms, to being a listening ear when they had emotional struggles.

For Sprankle - a proponent of mental health therapy who encourages fellow students to take advantage of those services at Widener - news that the university is rolling out two new grant-funded programs dedicated to students' mental well-being is a positive development.

"One of the biggest things in school is your stress and anxiety. Coming from high school you're much more stressed," Sprankle said, explaining she, too, struggled as a new student.

In addition to multiple mental health services already offered - spearheaded by the Counseling and Psychological Services office, known as CAPS - the new initiatives include participation in a Steve Fund Equity in Mental Health on Campus initiative and programming and services provided through a Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant.

The Steve Fund Equity in Mental Health on Campus initiative will look at how Widener is doing at providing services to students of color. The Steve Fund is an organization dedicated to supporting the mental health and emotional well-being of young people of color. The fund will assess the university's performance and make evidence-based recommendations and strategies for how to better inform, support and strengthen student mental health.

"This is about equity in mental health care and ensuring all Widener students are taking advantage of services that can help them succeed and know they belong here," said Associate Dean of Students Catherine Feminella, who co-chairs Widener's CARE Team, a campus support squad of faculty and staff committed to students' personal well-being and academic success. Feminella was instrumental in securing the funding for Widener through a higher education leadership development program for women.

Jennifer Horowitz co-chairs the CARE team with Feminella.

"Through our Steve Fund participation, we are working with campus coaches, and collaborating with other institutions going through this same process, all while employing a research-based approach that has proven effective in making a tangible impact on campuses nationwide," said Horowitz, who also serves as executive director of CAPS.

Junior Jayla Gore, a psychology major on a pre-med track, said Widener has made progress, but there is ample room for more - and this work has the university moving forward.

"Anything that raises awareness is good, across all groups," Gore said, adding she would like to see Widener pull in the Black Student Union and other groups like fraternities and sororities to partner on the effort.

"I feel it's on the right track because Widener is trying to raise awareness but also give us information, and we're students - we want to learn," Gore said. "The more we learn about mental health, that's a benefit."

The second new initiative, coming through a $300,000 Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant will be awarded over three years through the federal government. It will allow Widener to proactively emphasize a community-based approach to mental health and well-being, and move the conversation beyond the CAPS office. It will:

• Provide outreach and public education for students with mental health, suicide and alcohol use disorders.
• Provide training for students, faculty and staff on identifying and making referrals for students with mental health and substance use problems, and paying special attention for first-year and first-generation students through monthly programming.
• Develop a program of undergraduate student mental health ambassadors, and opportunities for graduate students to provide psychoeducational programming and mental health screenings. These efforts will further institutionalize student engagement in mental health and substance abuse education.
• Enhance partnerships with local mental health care providers who treat Widener students with more serious and long-term needs than the university's Counseling and Psychological Services office can accommodate on an ongoing basis.
• Fund the hiring of a project coordinator to facilitate these efforts.

"We're hoping to give students access to basic foundational training to recognize signs of distress or trouble in a peer, and how to report it to be able to get them help," Feminella said. "This generation is open to it."
Indeed, Sprankle said students often have trouble recognizing that they need help. She knew something was off personally in her early years at Widener, but it took encouragement from a mental-health astute staff member for her to contact CAPS. She was glad she did.

"I waited too long. I thought it was just for people who were really bad off and couldn't get out of bed. I was doing OK in classes and going to class but still struggling," Sprankle said. "A lot of our education misses the when-to-go question. Not eating but making it to class is not fine. The question mark around when to go is a big thing that I think sometimes gets missed."

Feminella said the ambassadors program will involve roughly 50 undergraduate students who will be trained to do outreach with their peers. And screenings conducted by graduate students - at things like tabling events - will help students take a moment to reflect and consider whether they would benefit from mental health support. Ambassadors will also be ensuring students know how to access assistance, for themselves or a peer. In addition, trainings for faculty and staff will broaden awareness and knowledge across campus so those groups will be better equipped to identify if a student is struggling, talk with them about it, and help act.

"I think that's important," said Damya Walton, a junior communications major and African American studies minor. "The only way you can learn about a topic is by people talking about it."

Feminella is excited about the faculty component to the education piece. Professors want to know how to help their students, she said, and educating them with what to look for, how to broach the subject on an individual level and ways they can connect troubled students with help will be empowering.

Walton, who aspires to a career in broadcasting, is interested in the leadership opportunity that would come from serving as a mental health ambassador. As a member of the Active Minds student group and the Widener chapter of the National Council of Negro Women, Walton said she talks a lot about mental health with her peers. The best way for the university to help improve students' perspectives on mental health is for Widener to continue striving to learn from them, and follow the cues for what needs addressing.

"It is encouraging," Walton said. "The fact that I'm being asked my thoughts and reviews on the subject matters a lot."

Horowitz said the new programs, added to existing services, continue to grow mental health as a university priority and enhance Widener as a place where students belong. Efforts that put mental health on equal footing with physical health help eradicate stigma and make it a safe and normalized topic of conversation throughout the community.

The new programs join existing services that include:

• The award-winning breathe mental health digital resource, created by and for students on the myWidener platform, providing one-touch access to mental health help from the university level all the way to national services like the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline.
• The TELUS Health Student Support resource that offers free, confidential virtual counseling 24/7 for students across the university. Real-time chat, phone or video sessions with professional counselors and crisis support, in multiple languages, is available.
• The on-campus CAPS office where students may make an appointment or use drop-in hours to speak in person with a staff counselor.

"The reality is this is going to be ongoing work. There will be enduring components to this that will live on and hopefully create sustainable change for the future that enhances the inclusive culture we've built at Widener," Horowitz said.