Effective Interventions for Student Mental Health

Posted by on November 11, 2005

2nd Annual Conference on Effective Interventions for Student Mental Health
On-Campus: Collaboration & Community
January 5 – January 7, 2006
Sheraton Universal Hotel, Universal City, CA
http://www.naspa.org/prodev/pddetail.cfm?ID=201

Sponsors:
Association for University & College Counseling Center
Center for College Health & Safety, Education Development Center;
American College Health Association

At colleges and universities across the country, we have seen an increasing number of students with serious psychological problems. The complexity and severity of these problems has overburdened available counseling services on most campuses, and the number of students on medication for these issues has had an impact on health centers as well. Substance abuse and other risky behaviors often co-exist with depression and other mental health conditions, masking the mental health needs, endangering students’ lives, and contributing to academic failure and dropout.

This professional development opportunity will provide a forum for examining the scope of the problem on campus and for exploring both an overall framework for mental health promotion and specific strategies individual campuses may have implemented with success.

This issue affects not just the individual student but the campus as a whole. Successful approaches require collaboration across campus and with the local community. Faculty, staff and administrators are searching for ways to best serve the needs of individual students as well as the entire campus community. Student affairs administrators, in particular, from resident directors to counselors to senior student affairs officers, are often on the front lines when dealing with these mental health concerns.

The goal of the conference is to raise awareness of the problem and its impact, explore promising approaches, increase collaboration among constituencies and identify what additional knowledge and skills are needed to create a campus environment that promotes student mental health, all in support of higher education’s ultimate goal — student learning.

Call for Programs:

To advance the dialogue and expansion of best practices around campus-wide collaboration for student mental health, conference organizers are seeking innovative program submissions that address critical issues, expand our knowledge, and provide a collaborative framework for improving our services for students to improve overall student learning.

The Conference Planning Committee seeks program proposals which will focus on the following themes: Campus-wide programs for supporting students with mental health concerns Promising practices for mental health issues, wellness and overall health on campus Academic and Faculty strategies to manage campus mental health education, prevention and graduation of competent students Collaborations between mental health and judicial affairs professionals for intervention and prevention Clinical coordination of counseling, health services and student affairs services.

For more information, visit http://www.naspa.org/prodev/pddetail.cfm?ID=201