So my oldest is a high school junior, and has been looking into colleges at a fairly specific level for a couple years. (What can I say? Her parents are both embedded within academia to some extent—she was doomed from the start.) She has a shortlist of 20 colleges, not counting our in-state options, none of which offer major fields that she’s interested in. (We live in Alaska—the pickings are slim up here.) We visited most of them this past summer (took a couple off her list from that—hurrah!), and she’s done a good bit of research on them up to this point.
Anyway, last night she announced that after having taken a break of a few months from the whole college search process, she felt like it was time to try to thin down her list a bit more. Given past experiences, what she wants to look into now is the strength of their counseling and mental health support services. So: How does one go about investigating this? Sure, you can find out what sort of mental health services they have, but neither of us have any idea how one would go about finding out what the actual experience of those services might be—you know, things like whether there are long waits, enough available counselors for the student population, the staff’s training (a cursory look says that’s surprisingly often not available), whether they have a “tough it out” mindset or something a bit softer, what their outcomes are like,…
My son is at a rural SLAC that has had an ongoing problem staffing their mental health support services. They have tried teaming with the town, local hospital and remote appointments, but some locations are more difficult to staff then others. Also, school newspapers are always a good source when trying to dig deeper into any issue.
my theory on this issue is that if mental health issues are more severe …you want a school attached to a hospital/med school. so if needed more advanced options are available. (of course your child needs insurance that works with the hospital next to the school)
if you are looking for general cognitive therapy support I am sure most schools have something available on campus.(how good or available on campus services are…is very hard to measure without actually being a student and trying to use those services) but if we are talking about medication management or similar things I would be more focused on close by availability.
for example university of pittsburgh and it’s teaching hospital which is right next to the school.
Yeah, nothing severe, and nothing involving medication or such, but rather general support—that’s why we had no idea on how to go about assessing it. The big stuff, you can find information on that, but smaller-scale things, well, they don’t make the news so much. (Though good idea on campus newspapers, @Mom24boys, and not just for this topic.)
Does she have a particular mental health issue?
My DD has anxiety. She is treated by a psychiatrist for meds…but she can visit her Dr when she visits home. You might need to find one near campus, if necessary. So we looked at “how can you get Rx’s at college”. The college she is at has a pharmacy that delivers to campus. Also we looked at schools that had a good freshman orientation program so that she would have a good chance to make friends and feel comfortable before school started. The school she picked was challenging academically…but not super challenging nor super easy. She felt at home with the other students academically. SHe also got into the honors program so was in an honors dorm with less of the freshman “zoo” in the other freshman dorms. Finally we picked one not too far away (Her choice) as she didn’t want to be too far from home. That not be possible for you…but west coast may be better than east coast.
Interesting topic and one we are also exploring for our child. I called each of the school’s counseling services as a prospective student’s parent and asked questions about the types for support staff, how often they have a psychiatrist visit, how likely to get a private appt versus group lesson. I also came across this document which is very useful:
At some point, you may need to name colleges or at least the tier and size, to narrow down some of the responses. My kid had an initial “not good enough” match with a counselor on her LAC campus, then switched to another who was great for her. This guy worked off campus, as well. (Her contact with him was through campus health but check your insurance for coverage off-campus. It’s an option. The main thing- I’m big on this- is to get the support of someone who focuses on this age group, knows it, not just a generalist. D2’s counselor at home also works with kids from the local colleges, is a godsend.)
We had a thread, a couple of years ago, complaining about health services. One point was hours. We were fortunate that there was nearly 24/7 coverage at her school. And a hospital almost across the street, a pharm within walking distance.
Another question, though, is what “general support?” I worked at a school where residential life and the chaplains were the first tier for a wide host of issues and did a great job of being an experienced shoulder . Then, if a kid needed more, they would be encouraged to go off to the clinic.