Delivering Effective College Mental Health Services

An essential guide to organizing and offering mental health services on campus. Stressed by increasing student demand for mental health services, campus counseling centers across the country are grappling with how best to deliver ethical, effective, and efficient service. Hampered by limited budgets, most centers find it deeply challenging to address growing college mental health service needs. Yet little conceptual training is provided to student affairs, higher education, health, and mental health professionals who deliver campus mental health services. In Delivering Effective College Mental Health Services, psychologist Lee Keyes aims to change that. He offers sound, field-tested advice for creating a congruent, cross-division, and service-oriented college counseling enterprise that best fits its campus culture and students. This useful handbook for administering counseling services • poses questions and offers practical advice to help college counseling centers form a consistent philosophical model • lays out conceptual groundwork for constructing college counseling services, from training activities to counseling/psychotherapy processes • takes into account the pressures (time related, economic, political, cultural) that strain universities • explains how to cultivate an accurate and empathic response to each individual, their entire history and context, and their possible life trajectory Written by a leading provider of college mental health services, Delivering Effective College Mental Health Services is an essential guide to organizing and offering mental health services on university and college campuses.

"What is the responsibility of college and university administrators when it comes to students with mental health concerns? How do mental health services fit within the academic mission of the institution? College student mental health: effective services and strategies across campus, answers these questions and advocates for a campus-wide support network, along with good mental health services, to improve students' academic performance and, ultimately, retention and graduation" -- Cover, p.4.

Mental health concerns are the most serious and prevalent health problems among students in higher education. Increasingly effective psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments have facilitated matriculation for students with histories of anxiety, mood, personality, eating and substance abuse disorders. This phenomenon has been accompanied by a striking increase in the number of previously undiagnosed students requesting treatment. College and university mental health programs struggle to care for larger numbers of students, necessitating greater interdisciplinary collaboration in treatment, research, outreach, and educational services. This book fills an important gap in the literature and provides a comprehensive resource for nearly every aspect of college mental health. It includes a strong emphasis on the training and education of graduate and professional students for future work in this field. Chapters are devoted to the significant ethical and legal issues related to treatment and associated administrative and policy challenges. Scholarly chapters on the promise of community mental health and public health approaches are especially innovative. There is also a chapter on international issues in college mental health which will be helpful to those students studying abroad. Mental Health Care in the College Community is written by acknowledged experts from mental health, college and university administration, legal and educational disciplines, all with extensive administrative and clinical experience in higher education settings. This book is clearly written and well illustrated with abundant tables, charts, and figures. This text will become essential reading for college mental health clinicians, graduate students in the mental health disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, counselling, nursing, and social work), student affairs deans and their staff, and even presidents or provosts of universities and colleges.

This book is a primer on Stepped Care 2.0. It is the first book in a series of three. This primer addresses the increased demand for mental health care by supporting stakeholders (help-seekers, providers, and policy-makers) to collaborate in enhancing care outcomes through work that is both more meaningful and sustainable. Our current mental health system is organized to offer highly intensive psychiatric and psychological care. While undoubtedly effective, demand far exceeds the supply for such specialized programming. Many people seeking to improve their mental health do not need psychiatric medication or sophisticated psychotherapy. A typical help seeker needs basic support. For knee pain, a nurse or physician might first recommend icing and resting the knee, working to achieve a healthy weight, and introducing low impact exercise before considering specialist care. Unfortunately, there is no parallel continuum of care for mental health and wellness. As a result, a person seeking the most basic support must line up and wait for the specialist along with those who may have very severe and/or complex needs. Why are there no lower intensity options? One reason is fear and stigma. A thorough assessment by a specialist is considered best practice. After all, what if we miss signs of suicide or potential harm to others? A reasonable question on the surface; however, the premise is flawed. First, the risk of suicide, or threat to others, for those already seeking care, is low. Second, our technical capacity to predict on these threats is virtually nil. Finally, assessment in our current culture of fear tends to focus more on the identification of deficits (as opposed to functional capacities), leading to over-prescription of expensive remedies and lost opportunities for autonomy and self-management. Despite little evidence linking assessment to treatment outcomes, and no evidence supporting our capacity to detect risk for harm, we persist with lengthy intake assessments and automatic specialist referrals that delay care. Before providers and policy makers can feel comfortable letting go of risk assessment, however, they need to understand the forces underlying the risk paradigm that dominates our society and restricts creative solutions for supporting those in need.

A timely, comprehensive guide for university administrators, mental health practitioners, and graduate students, cogently synthesizing the latest research and practice in the rapidly changing mental health field. Anyone concerned with the practice, organization, and administration of college counseling will find this an invaluable guide.

Campus counseling services today must face the challenges of greater diversity and complexity on campus while making do with fewer resources. In order to be maximally effective, they must be willing to engage with other services within and beyond the campus itself. This comprehensive manual for campus mental health and student affairs professionals is specifically designed to provide the most current information available regarding critical issues impacting the mental health and educational experiences of today's college students. It is unique in its focus on outreach beyond the walls of the counseling center and how counseling services can coordinate their efforts with other on and off-campus institutions to expand their reach and provide optimal services. Written for both mental health counselors and administrators, the text addresses ethical and legal issues, campus outreach, crisis and trauma services, substance abuse, sexual minorities, spiritual and religious issues, bullying and aggression, web-based counseling, and pychoeducational services. The authors of this text distill their expertise from more than 30 years of combined experience working and teaching in a variety of college and university counseling centers throughout the U.S. The book serves as both a comprehensive text for courses in college counseling and college student affairs and services, as well as an all-inclusive manual for all college and university mental health and student affairs professionals. Key Features: Offers comprehensive, up-to-date coverage of college counseling center practices and programming Provides a unique focus on integration and coordination with other student services within and beyond the campus Covers a wide range of counseling services including academic and residential Discusses critical contemporary issues such as substance abuse, response to violent and traumatic events, internet bullying, and diversity concerns Written by authors with a wide range of experience in counseling services and other student affairs

Everything you didn’t know about the effectiveness of evidence-based psychotherapy in the university setting Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Practice in College Mental Health presents an overview of EBP theory, research, and practice with a focus on the key issues in this growing field. The book features individual chapters on depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and alcohol abuse, and includes a special section on training in EBP through college counseling center based practicums and internships. Contributors address common concerns and issues about EBP and present recommendations for future practice and research in college counseling centers. College counseling center administrators and staff face the increasing challenge of providing services that address the unique stresses and dynamics facing students who often deal with multiple co-existing disorders as well as the normal developmental challenges of adjusting to college life. Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Practice in College Mental Health provides mental and behavioral health professionals with insight into the considerable contrast between theory, practice, and research in EBP as they evaluate its effectiveness on campus. The book looks at which evidence-based methods are currently used for clinical assessment and treatment, how evidence-based approaches apply to the therapy practiced on most campuses, and what the implications are for practice and research in university mental health settings. Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Practice in College Mental Health examines evidence-based treatment of: alcohol related issues (personalized feedback, attitudinal change techniques, skills-based approaches, single-session interventions) depression (length of psychotherapy, diagnostic purity, lack of adherence to specific theoretical models) anxiety disorders (effectiveness studies, efficacious studies, common factors, therapist-relationship factors) eating disorders (EBP research paradigms, populations studied, interventions, assessments and outcome measures, multicultural considerations) Evidence-Based Psychotherapy Practice in College Mental Health also offers suggestions for college counseling center clinical supervisors on how to incorporate EBP training while balancing common concerns about the applicability of EBP in working with college students. This unique book is an important resource for all practitioners working in university settings—from practicum students to seasoned professionals.

For many children, schools are the main or only providers of mental health services. In this visionary and comprehensive book, two nationally known experts describe a new approach to school-based mental health—one that better serves students, maximizes resources, and promotes academic performance. The authors describe how educators can effectively coordinate internal and external resources to support a healthy school environment and help at-risk students overcome barriers to learning. School leaders, psychologists, counselors, and policy makers will find essential guidance, including: • An overview of the history and current state of school mental health programs, discussing major issues confronting the field • Strategies for effective school-based initiatives, including addressing behavior issues, introducing classroom-based activities, and coordinating with community resources • A call to action for higher-quality mental health programming across public schools—including how collaboration, research, and advocacy can make a difference Gain the knowledge you need to develop or improve your school's mental health program to better serve both the academic and mental health needs of your students!