May is Mental Health Awareness Month and Lane Community College offers free mental health services through the Mental Health and Awareness Center. Jean Gipple, one of three therapists at the Mental Health and Wellness Center, provided some information on what services are provided and how students can access these services.
What kind of services does the Mental Health and Wellness Center offer?
We offer free and completely confidential counseling. Most of what we do is individual counseling although we do offer some groups, but they have not been well attended over COVID and we also do some workshops.
What kind of stigmas exist around mental health and college students?
I think there’s been a lot of progress in that area, especially for people in the United States. For our international students there’s some stigma about seeking help or letting people outside of the family know what’s going on. And there’s still some stigma that exists even with domestic students just sort of depending on how people are raised. Some people believe instead of talking to a counselor they should go to the spiritual advisor or something like that.
Is there anything you are doing to bridge that gap with international students?
We try to make ourselves available. We get referrals from international students so people are coming and that’s good. I think that that will be helpful, just to get the word out that services are available. As more students take advantage of that then more will come.
You mentioned that you do workshops, are there any happening before the end of the term?
Well, we were doing a lot of workshops and not having people show, and so we stopped doing that because it was a lot of work. We are more hopeful that, when we get back on campus people will be interested in attending those and then we’ll be adding more to them. We did record all of those workshops and they are available on our website so you can go and check that out, see the ones that we have done. We also try to be responsive to what’s going on in the campus community so if there’s say you know, a death, we are available for students and sometimes even staff to process that. Or if there is a national event that has been difficult for maybe a certain segment of the student population, we will make ourselves available for that. If something happened today, we would send out an email to students saying we will be available tomorrow during these hours.
Past workshops can be found here.
Are appointments in person or do you have virtual appointments as well?
We have both, yeah it’s mostly online. But each therapist is on campus one day a week or more and sees clients in person as well.
How did you adjust to the pandemic and not having students on campus?
It’s interesting because you would think the adjustment would be more if we got to see a whole lot of students. So it’s basically doing more to kind of get the word out. And then we’ve also had some departmental heads shifts and so our internal organization has changed a lot. There has been a lot of change, which has been difficult.
Is there anything you want LCC students to know about mental health awareness, before the end of the school year?
I think that the most important thing to know is, come in, we’re here, we’re available, we can do same week appointments. Right now in the Eugene Springfield area it’s really hard to get a therapist, and so students should know that we’re here, that we’re free, and that it’s not a commitment. You could come in one time and talk to us for 20 minutes or do something more traditional like have a weekly therapy appointment in person or on zoom. Students should also pay attention because there’s events that go on that could be pretty beneficial for students.
Is there anything more that you would like LCC to be doing regarding mental health awareness and outreach?
I think that people are doing what they can and you know right now we’re hiring for a supervisor position and once we get that person in place then we’ll really have more direction and that’ll be helpful. Right now, I think you know people are doing what they can to get that person in place.
Where is the Mental Health and Wellness Center
We are kind of buried in the Health Clinic. In Building 18 room 101. People can call or email us and our admin person will schedule them and they just need to sign a consent form.
