As the Student Association president maps out plans for a peer-counseling program to launch as early as fall 2015, he will look to models at universities across the country – which officials said took years to launch.
Nick Gumas, who was elected last month, will try to lay the groundwork for the program this year, but will likely face plenty of challenges. Administrators from universities that already run peer-counseling programs, like Drexel and Cornell universities, said starting them includes a host of challenges, such as setting training procedures, building up a qualified staff, finding space and addressing privacy concerns.
Janet Shortell, Cornell’s assistant dean of students, said it took nearly a decade to transform the program, called Empathy, Assistance and Referral Service, into a daily walk-in center and added that its not meant to replace university resources.
“With a campus as diverse as ours, in order to be responsive, you need to provide as many points of access to care,” Shortell said. “We increase the chances that students will experience that kind of careful listening as hopeful and not overwhelming.”
Gumas, who declined to discuss details of the potential program until he takes over in May, admitted during his campaign that building the program would take time. He has said he closely studied the EARS program before pitching GW’s own version.
At Cornell, volunteer counselors, who receive about 90 hours of training in two semesters, are available for about seven hours every day for drop-in or phone meetings. About 300 students sign up for training each semester, though only about 15 percent become counselors, she said.
Drexel University, which offers a phone-based program, offers weekend-long intensive training sessions each semester to teach new student volunteers to work the phone line.
Student callers remain anonymous, which the program’s faculty coordinator Jillian Niell, said encourages students to seek help even if they feel uncomfortable seeing a therapist. She added that student volunteers offer support, but will refer students to other mental health offices for severe or recurring concerns.
“It’s letting the students who are calling have a venue for expressing their feelings. It’s not geared towards therapy, necessarily,” Niell said.
But GW could get a jump start on training because it already offers a little-known peer education program, housed in the University Counseling Center and the psychology department.
The three-credit course, which was cancelled last fall and not offered this spring, trained students to speak with their peers about mental health and drug and alcohol abuse issues. The students then became campus mental health advocates and took part in initiatives like the annual chalk-in event during finals week. They did not, however, take calls or appointments with students.
Gumas said he would look to partner with the existing course.
The incoming SA president met with administrators twice before he was elected earlier this month, University spokesman Dave Andrews said. He said administrators are still considering whether the program is feasible and was closely evaluating the details.
Gumas’ plans would also look to support victims of sexual assault. Students have lobbied for more sexual assault awareness on campus over the last few years.
Julia Susuni, the current SA president, said she and executive vice president Kostas Skordalos discussed the importance of increasing support for sexual assault victims with University President Steven Knapp and Provost Steven Lerman this week.
Students at the University of New Hampshire help run a 24-hour support hotline and a peer-counseling center specifically meant for students who have experienced sexual assault, relationship abuse or stalking.
Volunteers must take a four-credit training course before they are assigned shifts. Maggie Wells, the program’s outreach coordinator, said it was important to train students to deal with sensitive issues such as sexual assault, which she called an “epidemic on college campuses.”
“What’s happened to them is already out of their control. What we can do is be there to say, ‘You have options, you have resources, you’re not alone,’ and then support you as you chose to do whatever you choose to do,” she said.
