University of Iowa counseling extends its footprint, already seeing positive returns

IOWA CITY - As the Board of Regents last October debated tuition rates, Rachel Zuckerman, then the University of Iowa student government president, diverted the conversation to an unexpected place: mental health.

She told regents about a spike in demand for counseling on campus, but only feeble support to meet those needs. At the time, the UI was second from last among Big Ten universities for its ratio of counseling staff to students. The board heard her appeal, and swapped out a $10 general health fee with a new $12.50 mental health charge all UI students started paying over the summer.

This fall, the benefits are materializing with more therapists at more locations that are convenient to students.

University Counseling Services has added six staff therapists, bringing its team to 21; embedded an additional counselor in an east-side residence hall; and opened a second location east of the Iowa River - in addition to its long-standing west-side home base.

The new location, which has five offices and four full-time staffers on the first floor of the downtown University Capitol Centre, officially celebrated its arrival Thursday, although it has been seeing clients since Aug. 7.

Staff therapist Adam Hinshaw said student traffic through the door so far bears out Zuckerman's assertions last fall.

'While we've expanded our services to try to make more room, what we're kind of seeing is an if-you-build-it-they-will-come thing, or however big the bucket is, it will get full,” Hinshaw said. 'We are certainly seeing a lot more students.”

Between July 1 and Sept. 22, UI counseling reported a 14 percent increase in student clients over the same period last year. The extra space and extra staff are helping it manage what has become a definite trend: UI counseling served 1,744 students in the 2015 budget year; 2,008 in 2016; and 2,376 in the 2017 budget year.

Among those coming to Hinshaw's office are students struggling with anxiety, depression, loneliness and challenges of adjusting to college life, he said. Some have experienced trauma, including sexual assault, either before arriving on campus or after.

He also has talked with students who say they have experienced oppression and discrimination, which relates - at least in part - to the increasing demand.

'There's been in the last year a spike in services since the results of the election,” Hinshaw said. 'A lot of those things are becoming much more salient for people and can certainly contribute to things like depression and anxiety.”

But the increase in demand also might be related to a fading of stigma associated with mental health issues.

'The reduction in stigma has made it so that students are more willing to access services,” Hinshaw said from inside his new office.

'You certainly see that here at this location,” he said. 'A lot of the students want to be seen here in this office, which tells you ... the stigma factor is not as big. Otherwise they wouldn't be willing to walk in the door right here in the Old Capitol Mall.”

At University Counseling Services' west- and east-side locations, students call or stop in to make same-day or scheduled appointments. The offices also offer half-hour, walk-in 'problem-solving” sessions.

Among the university's embedded therapists, two are in Elizabeth Catlett Residence Hall, one is in the College of Dentistry and the equivalent of 1.5 are in the Department of Athletics.

The goal of the embedded model, according to University Counseling Service Director Barry Schreier, is to expand services to students who've expressed a need and to reach populations that have been among the lowest users of counseling services - like first-year students in residence halls.

The office also has ramped up its group-counseling services, in which five to eight students meet with a counselor together. Hinshaw called that a 'treatment of choice” for a lot of clients, especially those with issues of loneliness.

'The groups are pretty much, in a lot of ways, like individual therapy in that whatever they need to talk about they can talk about,” he said. 'But the emotional depth of them, and the impact it usually has on the students, is much greater.”

Individual counseling, however, remains the most common treatment.

Having tapped the university's mental health services both as an undergraduate and now graduate student, Amy Lintner, 24, said she is all for expansion both in the number of therapists and the physical footprint.

'As we continue to advance in our student services and how we can better support our students, it's becoming more and more important that it's more accessible and closer to students who need it and are wanting it,” she said.

Lintner said UI therapists helped her work through anxiety and depression issues and also become a better advocate for her all-around mental health going forward.

'I had a mentor in undergrad who told me that it should be a requirement for everyone to have to go and see a counselor at least once in their undergraduate career,” she said.

l Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com