Counseling Services gives

Since the average student does not have solutions to life’s everyday problems, the GC&SU Counseling Services Department is here to help.

The purpose of Counseling Services is to help students define and accomplish their personal and academic goals. Among the specific services designed to help students achieve these goals are career, personal and academic counseling by qualified professionals and student leadership development opportunities. In order to achieve its basic goals, Counseling Services is dedicated to taking a proactive role in promoting a campus environment that will enhance intellectual, emotional and physical growth opportunities.

While these services are available to faculty and staff of GC&SU, they are aimed primarily at students.

“(Our services are) primarily short-term general counseling to students,” said Susan Hendley, counselor and assistant director of Counseling Services. “We feel like (the students) are our primary responsibility.”

Services offered include individual counseling, group counseling, leadership development, presentations, referrals and a resource library. All of the services, except referrals, are supplied free of charge to enrolled students. Counseling is confidential and voluntary.

Individual personal counseling is short-term. Students can bring any topic needed to a counselor. Referrals are offered on as as-needed basis to students who would benefit from long-term care or special treatment programs.

“We sometimes refer students out,” Hendley said. “We sometimes feel a student needs to talk to someone very long-term, and if we recognize (that a student has) a long-term need, we will refer the student out. We try to get students with those needs to see somebody else.”

Since long-term group counseling is not available on a regular basis, Counseling Services will organize support groups if many individuals are interested in dealing with a particular issue.

Counseling Services also provides a group of presentations that are commonly requested by people in an array of settings. The topics can be altered especially for a class, organization or group living situation. The presentations focus on topics such as adjusting to loss, assertiveness, communication skills, date rape, relationships, stress management, study skills, test taking and time management.

“We do a lot of outreach in classes and residence halls. (We do) a lot of workshop programming,” Hendley said. “(We also) go into academic programs that are high-stressed, like (the education) cohorts. Those students are locked in by their schedule, so they really can’t get in for appointment. We started going in and doing group stress (projects). We go in there about once a month for most of the cohorts. We’re beginning to develop something like that with the School of Nursing.”

Also provided in the Counseling Services office is a resource library, which includes books about self-development, identity, understanding others, study aids and career choice. Most are available to check-out.

The Counseling Services staff consists of five licensed therapists and a psychiatrist, who is available for consultation a few hours a week. On October 24, clinical psychologist Dr. Amy Harrington will be joining the team, which will be the first time the department will have a full-time psychologist on staff.

The counselors are generalists who deal with all kinds of issues, including personal, family, academic and career problems.

Counseling seems to be beneficial to students.

“Each semester, we send out requests for feedback for students we’ve seen during the semester,” said Director of Counseling Services Dr. Mary Jane Phillips. “The results aren’t considered a scientific poll-we don’t have a high enough percentage responding for that, but they are informative. In general, between 60 and 70 percent of these folks report that counseling helped them to stay in school, and between 70 and 80 percent say that counseling helped them to do better in school. Students feel that the services they get here help them reach their goals.”

A student who recently visited Counseling Services, and wishes to remain anonymous, said, “I went to get a professional opinion on an issue I was dealing with. I’m not a trained counselor, and I didn’t understand what was going on inside my head. I went to talk to someone who could make sense of the situation.”

The Office of Counseling Services is located in Lanier Hall, Room 122. Office hours are from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Presentations can be scheduled during office hours, after hours or on weekends.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 14 2005. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry