On Tufts' campus, nearly every student knows that, in the case of physical injury or illness, Health Service is the place to go. Students know where it is located and what it offers. The same cannot be said of the Counseling and Mental Health Service (CMHS). Of those students who know about the service, few could tell you where it is or what it offers. A similarly small number of students could list the symptoms that indicate someone should seek help at the CMHS. This ignorance is more dangerous than it seems. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-to 24-year-olds — it's one that Tufts experienced firsthand a few years ago — and the community cannot afford to stay in the dark about psychological issues or the resources available to address them.
In October of last year, Tufts received a $300,000 grant from the Substance Abuse Mental Health and Services Administration to implement a new suicide prevention program. The "Tufts Community Cares" initiative will include more than 20 presentations about mental health around campus and will emphasize working with Tufts student groups to disseminate information about the CMHS, mental health and suicide prevention. But this will not be enough.
While the CMHS is taking a major step toward making the campus more aware of mental health issues and resources, it should be a university-wide priority to ensure that students are better informed on these subjects. Vital and basic information about the CMHS should be incorporated into first-year orientation. This programming should emphasize resources like the counselor-on-call — a counselor who is available at any time of day or night for a phone conversation and, if necessary, to come to campus to help a student in distress — the 10 counseling sessions available free to every Tufts student and the various workshops and support groups run through or in tandem with the CMHS.
Resident Assistants (RAs) and Residence Directors (RDs) should ensure that every student living on campus knows about her residence hall's counselor, who is available to work with the RAs and RDs in such areas as helping residents who are suffering from psychological issues and designing programs in dorms to address mental well-being.
In addition, though Orientation Leaders and RAs are at least given some information about the CMHS and identifying students suffering from mental health issues, this information should be more widely distributed on campus. Students may notice changes in the behavior of a friend or classmate but not realize that they are indicative of mental health problems. Students who become withdrawn or anti-social as a result of mental health issues or stressful emotional situations are even more likely to go unnoticed by an uninformed student body.
It is the job of the university to ensure that it gives as much attention to suicide prevention and sound mental health as it does to swine flu prevention and mononucleosis treatment. Though they may not be as obvious, mental health problems are no less dangerous than physical illness.
