E Amazings
  • Home
  • Automotive
  • Business
  • CBD
  • Crypto
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Fashion
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Home Improvement
  • Law \ Legal
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel

Subscribe to Updates

Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

What's Hot

Stock Market Outlook: Analysts list triggers; Global trends, WPI inflation data to chart trajectory to drive markets this week

August 15, 2022

China cuts interest rate to shore up sagging economy

August 15, 2022

Binance Gets In-Principal Approval to Operate in Kazakhstan

August 15, 2022
Facebook Twitter Instagram
E Amazings
  • Home
  • Automotive
  • Business
  • CBD
  • Crypto
  • Education
  • Entertainment
  • Fashion
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Home Improvement
  • Law \ Legal
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Sports
  • Technology
  • Travel
Facebook Twitter Instagram
E Amazings
You are at:Home»Education»Hiring more college counselors is not the only or the best answer for college students’ mental health struggles
Education

Hiring more college counselors is not the only or the best answer for college students’ mental health struggles

Paul EasterBy Paul EasterAugust 1, 2022No Comments5 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Email


College students are demanding access to more mental health counselors. Even before the pandemic, students were struggling with a range of mental health issues. Covid exacerbated this mental health crisis, and colleges — in response — are devoting their limited and often-shrinking budgets to hiring more counselors.

On the one hand, counselors can save lives, and students deserve access to mental health counseling. On the other hand, there are times when it feels as if hiring more counselors is offered as a panacea, and this causes its own problems.

To start, the demand for more counselors often ignores issues of quality. Not all counselors are created equal, and not all schools can attract and retain good counselors.

I worry that students will be disappointed when they realize that although they got more counselors, things didn’t get better. This is because there aren’t enough top-quality counselors to meet the demand, and because — in many ways — looking to the counseling center to solve all our mental health problems lets colleges off the hook too easily.

When a student gets to a four-year residential college, they are often faced with an unhealthy culture. For example, there is too much binge drinking on residential college campuses. Colleges also harbor toxic hookup cultures that too often lead to sexual assaults.

Though a counselor can help an individual student get a better handle on their substance or social media use, this does very little to change the cultures and climates that negatively impact college students’ mental health to begin with.

Colleges know this, and they aren’t doing enough in response. If the normal college experience in America is defined by unhealthy behaviors, then I think we can see how hiring more counselors — though necessary —is far from sufficient to bring about the deeper changes that will lead to healthier cultures for students.

Related: Students who drop out for mental health struggles are turning to pricey programs to find their way back

Here are some steps colleges can take in addition to hiring more counselors to create a holistic response to the mental health crisis that is impacting so many students and families.

First, we need to change the narrative about what it means to have a college experience. Too many students put too much pressure on themselves to do it all and at once, even if this means engaging in the unhealthy behaviors that negatively impact their mental health and well-being.

High schools and colleges can be more intentional about preparing students for a successful transition to college. Students need to be given permission by the people they respect to fully engage in and be present to those few things that give them purpose, even if this means doing less — from a quantitative or status perspective — than other students. Having this sense of purpose will make it easier for students to say no to aspects of college culture they know to be unhealthy but have trouble resisting absent that purpose.

There are times when it feels as if hiring more counselors is offered as a panacea, and this causes its own problems.

Second, because mental health challenges are often caused by campus cultures, students should be encouraged to work together to change those cultures. Though counselors can help individuals manage how they respond to the environment they are in, groups of students can work together to change the cultures that lead so many students to seek counseling.

Colleges can offer more action research courses in which students study their campus and propose ways to make it better. Colleges can also incentivize the formation of clubs that create healthier cultures on campus and incentivize faculty to teach courses attuned to the mental health challenges students face.

Third, professors are not counselors, but good teaching has the power to offer purpose and hope. We are uniquely positioned to create learning experiences that engage the whole student and that get them excited to learn and grow as individuals.

Though this type of teaching most certainly doesn’t replace counseling, I believe that if more students were more fully engaged in their studies and found purpose in their coursework, the overall climate for mental health would improve.

Finally, though face-to-face counseling may be the best possible counseling, students need to rethink resistance to Zoom and telecounseling. Though telecounseling may not be the ideal solution, it may be the best possible option they have.

And students learning to appreciate the good-though-less-than-ideal is another way to build the resilience and resourcefulness that will contribute positively to their individual and collective mental health and well-being.

Mental health struggles are real. Mental health counselors are important. But it is also important to expand our ways of thinking about how to best respond to the crisis that is impacting so many young people.

I admire the students who are fighting to create better mental health climates on college campuses. Hiring more counselors is not the only, or even the main, way to get there. We all need to think more holistically about how to best address this most pressing issue.

Jeff Frank is an associate professor in the Education Department at St. Lawrence University in New York.

This story about college students’ mental health was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

Related articles

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

Join us today.



Source link

Paul Easter

Related Posts

We need more of them

By Paul EasterAugust 15, 2022

PROOF POINTS: Payoff for state flagships is 10 percent larger than published data indicate

By Paul EasterAugust 15, 2022

“Summer melt” was bad during the pandemic, experts fear it could get worse

By Paul EasterAugust 12, 2022

Many pioneers of income-share agreements have ended programs

By Paul EasterAugust 12, 2022
Add A Comment

Comments are closed.

Our Picks

Stock Market Outlook: Analysts list triggers; Global trends, WPI inflation data to chart trajectory to drive markets this week

By Paul EasterAugust 15, 2022

China cuts interest rate to shore up sagging economy

By Paul EasterAugust 15, 2022

Binance Gets In-Principal Approval to Operate in Kazakhstan

By Paul EasterAugust 15, 2022
Recent Posts
  • Stock Market Outlook: Analysts list triggers; Global trends, WPI inflation data to chart trajectory to drive markets this week August 15, 2022
  • China cuts interest rate to shore up sagging economy August 15, 2022
  • Binance Gets In-Principal Approval to Operate in Kazakhstan August 15, 2022
  • India’s first intranasal Covid-19 vaccine trial over, Bharat Biotech calls it safe and immunogenic August 15, 2022
  • In Bronx Senate Race, Democrats Unite in Opposition to New Affordable Housing  August 15, 2022
  • Vivo V25 Pro 5G price in India, specifications and availability – All you need to know ahead of Aug 17 launch August 15, 2022
  • Arul Saravanan’s Film Struggles At The Box Office! August 15, 2022
Archives
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest TikTok
  • Home
© 2022 E Amazings - All Rights Reserved.

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.