Mental Illness on Campus: Accommodations and Resources

By Jessa Schroeder and Jon Huntsman

According to the National Institute on Mental Health (NIMH), “Almost 73 percent of students living with a mental health condition experienced a mental health crisis on campus, yet 34.2 percent reported that their college did not know about their crisis.”

Mental health affects people of all ages, and in this case, particularly focused on college students. It is an issue that needs to be addressed and made awareness of because it can impede student success and well-being, and even lead to much greater concerns, such as failure to function in the classroom or much worse, suicidal tendencies.

NIMH also states that “more than 11 percent of college students have been diagnosed or treated for anxiety in the past year and more than 10 percent reported being diagnosed or treated for depression, while more than 40 percent of college students have felt more than an average amount of stress within the past 12 months.”

Director of Residence Services, Jill Church said “Generally, in campus housing, we would not know whether a student has mental health needs or not — Sometimes students will have interactions where they are having suicidal thoughts or ideations, and in those scenarios, our staff is trained to bond with these students, and help get them the assistance they need.”

Church said in the case of students living on campus dealing with mental illness, they would assure they have university and other resources available to them, including Psychological Services, Coleman Professional Services and others.

She said the “Step Up, Speak Out” services gives a good overview of what all faculty and staff members should be watching and listening for in regards to student behavior. “It’s what my staff used to make sure that students are getting the assistance they need on campus.”

As far as funding, Church said Whitehall Counseling is free to all students, Psychological Services does have a fee associated with it on a sliding scale, using health insurance. If students do not have health insurance, the fee will be reduced based on what they are able to pay, similar to the county services offered.

“We want everyone at the university to be aware of resources. If you are roommates with somebody and they are having a hard time with transition, help and get them connected to the hall staff member, or connected to the resources mentioned,” Church said.

Joel Mowrey, former executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County said (when talking about college students): “Students have stress and anxiety, as they are dealing with growing up and being on their own, in college, getting jobs and relationships — and even though we don’t have a formal diagnosis for stress, one of the things we always emphasis is that everybody has stress, which means everybody deals with mental health.”

Mowrey said issues may not be severe or chronic, but they are still mental health related. “Some people have more chronic kinds of issues, such as anxiety, depression, and there’s a number of people, such as different college students that we see, who have history of trauma. “They may have been sexually or physically abused, emotionally abused and victims of domestic violence. So they are coming into the adult world already with a history of trauma that they are also dealing with or maybe have never dealt with.”

He said there are more severe chronic mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia- which are relatively rare, but some students will experience those as well. “Stress is number one.”

Mowrey said he believes the triggers of progression in mental illness is a combination of things.

“I think it starts with environmental kinds of things. We talk about stress and so forth, and college students worry about getting passing grades, getting their assignments done, they may have to hold down a job, there are financial concerns, etc. Relationships are always a big one- whether it’s with family, significant others and getting along with other people.

“For some people, it’s not a big deal for them (in terms of a stressor), but for somebody else, it’s a major deal, it’s a major crisis.”

Mowrey said researchers believe biological factors also play into mental illness as well as environmental factors.

According to Mowrey, “The mental health and recovery board is part of a state-wide system of boards. There is actually 53 boards across the state of Ohio, and the purpose of them are to operate the planning, funding and monitoring for mental health and addiction services in the county”

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“Here in Portage county, we plan in terms of what services that are needed, and we work primarily with four agencies: Coleman Professional Services, Townhall II, Community Services and Children’s Advantage and Family.”

 

 

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“What we do is provide funding to those agencies, and then from there e monitor the services they have in terms of making sure they’re providing the services that we need for people with mental illness as well as addiction.”