Presenter: Kylie Juggert
Mentor: Kristin Yarris, International Studies
Poster: 35
Major: International Studies
Within the last decade there has been an increase in the number of students seeking university campus mental health and crisis intervention services, leading to long waitlists, delays in assistance, and redirected student searches for mental health aid away from trained providers to faculty and staff. Through thematic content analysis of counseling center websites and interviews with counseling center administrators from the University of Oregon and nineteen other UO similar institutions – public, large, coed, urban universities – we collate best practices for Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) programs that address these issues. Our findings reveal common problems, including: increased severity and complexity of student needs, limited resources, and minimal faculty training around handling student mental health situations. A negative association between the number of CAPS service issues reported in the administrator interviews and the administrator’s overall level of satisfaction with the current services was also found. Content analysis of CAPS websites by three coders determined that functionality and accessibility was the most important feature for perceived successfulness of the center’s website, followed by provision of resources for “concerned others” and prevention services and programs. The latter finding provides significant insight to potential best practice intervention methods, where improving the web content and accessibility of CAPS online sites and expanding resources for “concerned others” and prevention programs could mitigate some of the initial CAPS’ issues presented.