History:
When I started at Skyline College in 2008 our mental health program functioned like most mental health clinics in most schools. With one clinician, on-site, part-time providing predominantly direct services. Therapeutic services provided were both short and long term depending on the needs of the student and were mostly confined to the services within the walls of the therapy office.
My first goal when hired was to begin to collect data of the students being served. I created a monthly statistics sheet which gathered important data of how many counseling sessions were being held, demographic information about our students served such as gender, age, ethnicity and presenting issues and referral source. My aim was to identify key information about which students were utilizing our services and which students were not. Additionally, I wanted to identify which programs were readily referring students and which were not and determine how to develop outreach efforts to those programs that were less familiar with our offerings.
I began to create semester reports highlighting this information and presenting the data to our dean and VP of student services at any and every opportunity. I also shared the results within division meetings to begin to create a bridge between personal counseling services and our other divisions. My aim was to become a “voice to the voiceless” and begin to convey the amazing and harrowing stories of our students and to present trauma informed strategies to faculty and staff in various departments school wide.
Drop-In Services:
- Developed a drop-in hour from 12-1pm to provide services to students on a first come, first serve basis. This drop-in hour also provides for faculty and staff to walk over students in immediate need of services or to consult on students of concern.
- Students, faculty and staff will routinely request resources for friends or loved ones during this dedicated time.
- Often times students are not sure if what they are experiencing is “normal” and will often utilize this drop-in time to ask general questions about mental health concerns.
- Advocated for our direct services to include unlimited drop-in counseling for students once they completed the allotted number of therapy sessions provided. This was in recognition of the need to provide care coordination and ongoing support and to tailor our services to meet the unique needs of our nontraditional students i.e. students that would not be able to complete their general education in two to three years due to a variety of circumstances including learning differences. It has been extremely rewarding to be able to provide support in this way. I have had the privilege to see many of my students graduate and transfer and continue to receive feedback about the positive impact of the unlimited drop in support.
Intake Services:
- Developed a model of service where any student that initiates with our clinic can receive a comprehensive assessment/intake
- Developed comprehensive intake procedures which include the following:
- Depression PHQ-9 and Anxiety GAD-7 assessments
- AUDIT C and NIDA substance abuse assessments
- Psycho-social intake conducted which includes: Personal history, symptom history, crisis assessment, school affiliations, medical/insurance information.
- Care coordination and referral services provided as needed.
Crisis/Triage Services:
- Developed our triage plan in coordination with health center staff.
After meeting with our health center staff to identify the needs of the students walking into our health clinic. I developed a crisis management plan to assist with levels of care. This was an important step in our direct services as it took our office assistant out of the role of determining how to prioritize certain students in need. With this feedback our team developed a brief three question questionnaire to assist our students on how to advocate for the level of care needed. I continue to work very closely with our classified staff to ensure ongoing evaluation of our processes and procedures around this triage plan.
- Update triage plan each semester and incorporate feedback from our personal counseling team, classified staff, health center staff i.e. nurse practitioners and faculty and staff and students.
- Developed a policy to obtain from the student an Emergency contact and release of information if needed for crisis management purposes. This was developed in an effort to empower our students and to work collaboratively on safety planning.
- Coordinated with Emergency Services at San Mateo Medical Center and Mills Peninsula to assist with 51/50 process.
- Collaborated with these hospitals to ensure adequate documentation of stated concerns of suicidal students to assist with hospitalization and referral process.
- Developed preliminary plan for postvention
- Initiated plan to devise telehealth crisis plan
- Provided professional consultation to our Director of Student support to develop protocols and procedures in the aftermath of a crisis
- Assisted with immediate triage during school shooting and aftermath support and presentations for impacted Skyline community
- 51/50 plan for intern staff
- Provide consultation and feedback for crisis card and other resources
- Crisis intervention and faculty/staff consultations on CPS, APS and Title IX reporting
- Consultation and training of our staff on triage and crisis management.
In 2018, I was asked to join the hiring committee for our first full-time personal counseling position. I had extensive meetings with our Director of Student Support to explain the primary goals of a comprehensive school based mental health program and my strong recommendations to have our new full-time personal counselor role encompass these crucial elements. The recommendations were well received and I was tasked to train our new full-time personal counselor Perry Chen on these components. I developed his schedule and tasks highlighting the need for him to provide the triage support as he was on campus five days a week. Unlike other campuses where full-time counselors’ caseloads are filled up with direct services we minimized his case load to focus on the triage support and our outreach efforts. Perry’s focus on the triage needs also alleviated our direct service providers from constant interruptions to their sessions and boosted moral of our team.
1:1 Caseload
- Conduct short term, brief personal counseling on a drop-in and appointment basis
- Carried a caseload of 10-15 students in the adjunct faculty role
- Carry a modified client caseload in the full-time role currently
- Case management and care coordination
- Bilingual therapeutic services provided
- Cross-cultural sensitivity and culturally competent therapeutic services provided
- Conduct drop in services and assessments for adolescents in the middle college, jump start program and care coordination with their families.
- Conducted group therapy for Dream Center students