Sacred Heart U. Offers New Mental Health Digital Platform For Students

Press release from SHU:

Aug. 29, 2022

Sacred Heart University is launching YOU@SHU, a web-based platform, designed to foster mental health wellness among students. SHU also is expanding its counseling center to ensure students have all the emotional support and resources they may need.

The University acquired the new personalized digital platform with a grant from the Connecticut Campus Mental Health Program, which Gov. Ned Lamont announced last year to help colleges and universities address students’ mental health challenges driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Mental health is finally on the front page of every news source for higher education,” said James Geisler, director of counseling at Sacred Heart and grant co-director. “Students’ mental health is a priority at Sacred Heart and every other college and university.”

YOU@SHU focuses on early intervention. “Counseling is a very reactive approach when you think about it,” said Geisler. “Students are struggling; they come to us, and we provide a service. However, what if we were able to help students much sooner? Once students reach out to the counseling center, they’ve often accumulated symptoms that have grown worse and are now affecting their ability to function.”

“The digital resource was a great fit for our campus,” said Jessica Samuolis, associate professor of psychology and co-director of the grant funded by the Connecticut Campus Mental Health Program. The purpose of the project is to “increase mental health education and awareness by providing psychoeducational information and wellness tools, increase access to and availability of care by connecting students with a range of existing resources, and provide support to students with emerging issues to mitigate the need for treatment.”

Samuolis said, “YOU@SHU will enable us to accomplish these goals and expand efforts at SHU to build a thriving community of support.”

YOU@SHU will enable students to assess different aspects of their well-being, including social wellness, nutrition, sleep, relationships and more. The digital platform also will give students access to more than 2,500 evidence-based resources related to topics such as stress, sleep habits and time management, as well as SHU-specific resources. When students turn to the tool because they are struggling, they will be guided to the best resources on campus to help them.

“It’s imperative that every one of us as professional staff and faculty on campus accept responsibility for the well-being of our community,” said Karen Flanagan, peer education coordinator at the counseling center. “This platform fosters campus connections to many resources available at Sacred Heart. We need students to understand that accessing resources for support is a strategy for success, not a sign of failure.”

Flanagan uses the analogy of pulling person after person from a river to keep them from drowning, when the most effective rescue is to determine what is pushing everyone into the water and stop it. “This platform focuses on primary prevention, helping to catch people upriver, before they land in the water,” she said. “Students can use YOU@SHU to navigate stressors and keep them from growing to the point of affecting the student’s ability to function.”

YOU@SHU is scheduled to launch in August, before students arrive on campus, so they know about the available resources before classes begin. “They become aware of whom to ask for help when they need it most,” Geisler said. “This is huge. Before, students would come to campus with no knowledge of SHU’s wellness resources or how to access them. Beginning this year, in the first-year experience course, there will be a mental health topic, and YOU@SHU will be promoted.” Incoming students also performed a wellness exercise during orientation.

The entire SHU community will have access to helpful wellness resources. “We’re really taking this digital tool and saying, ‘Wellness is part of our culture here,’” Geisler explained. “We all have mental health, and we all need to take care of it.”

Counseling center expansion
In addition to YOU@SHU, mental health counselors will be available for students at the expanded counseling area in the Maureen Hamilton Wellness Center.

The center will house four full-time counselors and one part-timer, and there will still be one full-time counselor dedicated to athletics in the William H. Pitt Health & Recreation Center. Students can schedule appointments by calling the center, and counselors will accommodate same-day appointments for walk-ins and emergencies.

Visit the counseling center webpage or visit the You@SHU webpage for more information.

This press release was produced by SHU. The views expressed here are the author's own.