As the fall semester begins, students have to begin thinking, not only about how to balance their homework, but also their health.
In the previous semester, I spoke with Director of the Counseling Center Dr. Maureen Walls- McKay on the different concerns there are for the Counseling Center, including an increase in demand from the student body with a limited number of staff to meet this growth.
Walls-McKay reported that in the 2011-2012 academic year, the Counseling Center had a total of 2,050 sessions with 483 clients. In the 2012-2013 academic year, the Counseling Center had a total of 1,640 sessions with 508 clients.
Walls-McKay said, “The demand for services far exceeds the staffing resources. That’s not just here at Longwood. That’s a national concern for colleges and universities.”
In March 2013, Walls-McKay presented to the Longwood University Board of Visitors varying concerns, one being the potential loss of accreditation from International Association of Counseling Services (IACS) as well as the growth of a “liability concern.”
IACS is responsible for accrediting the counseling services for universities and colleges based on a variety of standards, including ethical standards, counseling service personnel and more.
According to the Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers, “Every effort should be made to maintain minimum staffing ratios in the range of one FTE [full-time equivalent] professional staff member (excluding trainees) to every 1,000 to 1,500 students, depending on services offered and other campus mental health agencies.”
Longwood University has been accredited by IACS since 2006 and is only one of eight colleges and universities that is accredited in the state of Virginia.
Currently, there are two full- time clinical staff members, as well as Walls-McKay who works half-time as a clinical provider and half-time as an administrator. She stated that four to five full-time clinical staff members would be ideal.
Because of the issue of understaffing, the clinical staff members of the Counseling Center often have full case loads each day.
Walls-McKay said, “It’s a demanding role ... professional burnout is a risk.”
She added, “We are thinking strategically about how to manage the student demand for services and our own professional burnout.”
She stated that the Counseling Center works hard to attend to newcomer students quickly, but has a difficulty with setting up follow-up appointments.
“The luxury of counseling used to be weekly appointments, but now that’s no longer the norm,” she stated.
Rather than having a regularly set time each week for a student to meet a counselor, a student must set up a new appointment after each meeting. For the fall 2013 semester, the average wait time was 6.89 days, but Walls- McKay stated that a student may have to wait 10 days or more for a follow-up appointment.
She said, “We want to be available to students, but more and more students are having to wait longer for their appointments.”
Walls-McKay said that it is common for counseling centers in colleges and universities to see students for a limited number of sessions before referring them out to private practitioners in the community. Even so, she noted that it is very rare for Longwood's Counseling Center to refer students out to private practitioners because of the limited number of private practitioners within the Town of Farmville.
With the increase in demand from students, the Counseling Center has attempted to alleviate the understaffing concern by lessening the amount of time for a student’s first visit from 50 minutes to 30 minutes, by focusing on group counseling and by increasing the number of graduate level interns.
“It’s following models that have been done at other colleges and universities in their counseling centers, so we feel good about it. We were hesitant at first, but really we haven’t found that it impedes the quality,” Walls- McKay said.
Another solution that the Counseling Center has looked into includes a satellite counseling center. Having two locations on campus would allow easier access to students as well as more visibility to the community.
Walls-McKay said, “We are a valued resource here at Longwood. We are valued by faculty, by staff and by students – and I would add by alumni.”
