Outreach
What is Outreach?
Outreach and consultation services are an integral part of the CCSD as these services connect with and support students who may not traditionally utilize individual or group therapy services. These students could include students with minoritized or marginalized identities, students who may be at higher risk of facing barriers to their academic and personal successes, students who may experience stigma about help seeking, students who may need support but not necessarily counseling, and students who may want to help a friend. Outreach and consultation allows the CCSD to prevent, educate, and intervene with the larger UD community and help build a “community of care.”
Outreach is a broad term and includes a wide variety of services such as facilitating workshops, conducting screening days, crisis event responses/debriefing, consultation (e.g., regarding program or needs assessment), attending/being present at campus events to reduce stigma/support other departments, interviews, tabling, social media, psycho-educational materials (printed as well as web-based), and UD community campaigns.
CCSD is a member of the Association for University and College Counseling Center Outreach (AUCCCO) and our efforts are in line with its mission.
Emergency Assistance
If you perceive an immediate danger or risk of suicide, call 911 for immediate assistance.
Students can also reach mental health support 24 hours a day on the UD Helpline or the Crisis Text Line.
Worried about a student?
Why We Do Outreach
Overarching Goals of Outreach and Consultation of the Counseling Center:
- Communicate the role and availability of the Counseling Center.
- Increase utilization of counseling center resources and services for those students who may under-utilize psychological services.
- Reduce and challenge stigma associated with CCSD, mental illness, and help seeking.
- Increase approach-ability.
- Increase safety of students in preventing behaviors that result in harm to self or others.
- Respond to the psychological and emotional needs that emerge in the UD community or any community within the University.
- Related to given crises impacting a University community.
- Related to identifiable patterns of behaviors suggesting emotional or psychological vulnerability impacting a University community.
- Provide informative materials and programs to UD student communities with the aim of facilitating personal, social, and academic success.
- Increase college mental health awareness and to provide information about mental illness and psychological distress to help create a more empathetic and supportive culture of care.
- Better inform students about personal effectiveness, interpersonal connections, and self-management, and facilitate development of life skills in these areas.
- Create Community/Network of Mental Health Support (“community of care”).
- Provide training to student leaders who serve in paraprofessional counseling roles (e.g., RA’s, peer mentors) and other student and academic life professionals.
- Increase empathetic understanding of issues in campus community and provide skills training in response to distressed students.
- Prompt conversation and/or contemplation on interpersonal and intrapersonal experiences toward facilitating “therapeutic connections” that can naturally exist in the community beyond formal mental health service delivery.
- Promote a climate of inclusivity.
- Increase awareness of social justice issues and introduce skills in forming relationships across lines of gender, gender identity expression, age, and religious affiliation.
- Facilitate student skill development of citizenship and professional interactions.
- Educate students of contextual factors and identity dimensions of psychological and social experiences (including intersecting identities).
Workshops and Program Topics
Belonging (Social, Engagement) program topics:
- Healthy relationships
- Developing your identity
- Effective communication
- Conflict resolution
- Assertiveness
Diversity, Culture, and Inclusion program topics:
- Impact of racial trauma
- Reactions to current/world events/tragedies
Mental Health Awareness and Safety program topics:
- Suicide prevention (Campus Connect)
- Working with distressed students
- Transitions/adjustments
- Managing homesickness, home for the holidays, parent talks
- Stigma reduction
Wellness program topics:
- Building resilience/bounce back
- Stress management
- Relaxation/mindfulness/meditation
- Eating and body concerns (e.g., mindful eating)
- Sleep Hygiene
- Yoga for stress relief