The Push for Telehealth Mental Counseling Services in College Campuses
With many colleges keeping some form of remote instruction for the fall 2020 semester due to COVID-19, telehealth services extend a hand to students in need of mental health counseling.
As you’ve probably seen and read in current news articles, colleges nationwide are adopting either a hybrid model (both in-person and online) or fully remote classes for the fall 2020 semester because of the recent surge in COVID-19 cases. Because of this, there are a number of decisions that college students must make — returning to campus or staying home, taking a gap year, housing accommodations, and on and on.
There’s no doubt that all these changes are causing stress and mental health concerns in college students. In fact, 85% of college students reported increased stress and anxiety levels due to COVID-19, according to a survey conducted by TimelyMD.
And universities should be the first points of contact to reach out to them. But if in-person campus resources aren’t available, this makes traditional mental health counseling services harder to access. This is where telehealth comes in.
Graduate students at the University of Nevada, Reno are finding ways to get their counseling training, all while extending help to clients that need it. The Downing Clinic trains graduate students under the university’s Counseling and Educational Psychology program. As counselors to their fellow peers, they have made it their mission to provide these telehealth services — they know firsthand how the pandemic has affected college students’ mental health.
“When they’re in their environment, they’re feeling those emotions, they’re having those issues, and we’re able to talk to them live-time in that environment through telehealth and be able to help them work through those things while they’re experiencing them” — Mona Martinez, Downing Counseling Clinic Director
Through online telehealth sessions, counselors and clients are able to have their discussions as if they were in-person. This option also provides a low-cost alternative for students who aren’t in a financial position to seek other mental health resources.
Similarly, doctoral students at Texas A&M University’s counseling clinic have focused on improving high-speed broadband for telehealth services, even extending out their help to rural communities and clinics. The university has partnered with clinics, schools, and hospitals to provide mental and behavioral health services to their patients online. Carly McCord, the clinical services director, emphasizes these students’ desire to use telehealth in extending a hand to more undeserved communities.
With the way this pandemic is continuing to unfold, who knows how long we will be in this state? This upcoming school year will undoubtedly be a challenge for college students, but if telehealth can help address mental health needs, this will surely be a step in the right direction.
