Students share notes of encouragement at Ohio State’s Suicide Prevention Program’s annual Out of the Darkness Walk, April 10. Credit: Courtesy of Taylor Youngpeter
With Mental Health Awareness Month already underway, Ohio State counseling services and psychology professionals are acknowledging the occasion by promoting resources available to students on and off campus.
The Office of Student Life’s Counseling and Consultation Services offers support for students facing mental health struggles of all kinds. Additionally, organizations on campus aimed at suicide awareness and prevention host events and share helpful resources.
“At CCS, we support [the] mental health and academic success of all enrolled Ohio State students,” said Harry Warner, outreach director and associate director at CCS. “So, the services that we offer — the thing that people most often think about is individual counseling.”
Warner said CCS offers different services for students with different needs.
“We offer consultations for students,” Warner said. “We have a program called ‘Let’s Talk,’ where students are able to consult with a counselor, confidentially, even without engaging in therapy.”
Students can access these resources and schedule appointments through the CCS website. Warner said students have three appointment scheduling options — a phone screening, ‘Let’s Talk’ and urgent services.
Phone screenings provide students with professional recommendations for the care they should receive, Warner said. Urgent services provide hotline information and other valuable resources for students with acute mental health concerns.
Students can access group therapy resources by completing an initial phone consultation and expressing interest to a provider. Students can also view upcoming workshops — which focus on teaching students coping strategies and ways to manage their stressors — on CCS’s website.
“If you were just looking for some skills or strategies to manage anxiety, you could come to our anxiety workshop and learn about those skills,” Warner said.
Warner said select services provided by CCS will be available through the summer as well, so students living off campus can still access care.
“[I]f you’re just gone for the summer, whether you’re in Ohio or not, CCS still offers a lot of services available through Telehealth or virtual services that students can access while they’re home for the summer,” Warner said. “We’re still able to provide support. It may not be ongoing treatment if you’re outside of Ohio, but we’re still here for students all summer long.”
Another on campus organization that observes Mental Health Awareness Month is Ohio State’s Suicide Prevention Program.
Laura Lewis, assistant director of OSUSPP, said there are “three buckets of work that [they] do,” — education, advocacy and outreach.
“The way that we know we can prevent suicide is by educating people on how to recognize the signs, how to reach out and get people access to care and the resources that they rightfully deserve,” Lewis said.
Lewis said the program is best-known for REACH, a 90-minute, in-person training program created “to increase knowledge and awareness of suicide risk and to inform attendees of our campus community resources,” according to REACH’s website.
“We’re trying to get to every corner that we can on campus,” Lewis said. “[E]very group, every department, really every human to show them that they can make a difference.”
OSUSPP also offers outreach events that aim to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health, such as their Out of the Darkness campus walk, Lewis said. The annual campus walk is in collaboration with the American Foundation for Suicide and takes place across all Ohio State campuses, according to OSUSPP’s website.
Graduate students, professional students and military students have access to the same mental health screening tools as undergraduates, Lewis said. She said the programs — titled “RUOK? Buckeyes” and “RUOK? Veterans” — look for symptoms of different mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and suicide risk.
“It’s not counseling, but it is a way to say ‘We can tell you need something,’ and we can show you how to get there,” Lewis said.
The program also sponsors the student organization Buckeye Campaign Against Suicide.
“They meet every week, they have speakers [and] they do outreach on campus,” Lewis said. “They’re very active in wanting to show that help seeking is really important and that it’s not a sign of weakness.”
“The heart of our mission is to educate people and to empower them and to give them the skills that they need because — let’s face it — at some point, statistically speaking, everybody’s going to need these skills,” Lewis said.
“Hope and healing exist and resources exist,” Lewis said. “There are a lot of people on this campus that really want to help.”
More information on available resources can be found on the CCS website and the OSUSPP website.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, visit your nearest Emergency Room or call 911. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached at 988. The National 24/7 Suicide Hotline is 800-784-2433. For the 24/7 free and confidential Crisis Text Line, text “4HOPE” to 741-741. If you are in a crisis or have an urgent need, you can call Counseling and Consultation Services at 614-292-5766 to speak with a therapist.
