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Emma Chapin: Hello. My research is on the effects of limited access policies on student access to and utilization of mental health resources in a university setting. My name is Emma champion and I had the help of quality supervisor. Dr. Cheryl as

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Emma Chapin: This is a sociological research project that investigates the responsibility of society should feel towards us. Individuals with regards to matters of personal care and specifically mental health care.

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Emma Chapin: For the purpose of this research society is interpreted as a college community. So there's research, research, the responsibility of colleges and universities to provide mental health counseling to students.

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Emma Chapin: And we found that students need to access mental health counseling is greater than what us Adam has so far been able to provide

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Emma Chapin: I mean, on the sociological brilliance of see right Mel's who coined the sociological imagination that which compels individuals to look at society from the outside.

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Emma Chapin: To understand how the actions of individuals affect others, and at the same time to understand how societies join history effects. It's contemporary citizens the sociological imagination is the idea that what I do affects everybody around me.

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Emma Chapin: I also looked at Burger and luqman social construction of reality which reminds us that the reality of everyday life presents itself as an interest objective world that we share with others.

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Emma Chapin: And that we cannot exist in everyday life without continually interacting and communicating with others.

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Emma Chapin: A healthy individual creates a healthy society a meal Durkheim defined solidarity is the extent to which an individual is bound to and bound by the group.

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Emma Chapin: And it's this sense of solidarity that I'm calling on when I say that our community has a responsibility to its members.

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Emma Chapin: We also must remember that social arrangements are man made the unifying takeaway from these sociologists, is that one of the most important and impactful parts of existing in society is that we are doing it with other people.

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Emma Chapin: And looking at the existing literature. I read the Center for collegiate mental health 2018 annual report.

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Emma Chapin: which showed that in the past eight years, the proportion of students attending mental health counseling increased from 46% to 54.4% somehow representing more than half of students.

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Emma Chapin: The proportion of students taking medication for mental health concerns increased from 31.3% 34.3% and this was a sample size around 41,000 individuals.

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Emma Chapin: And 1502 of those students reported that the reason they stopped utilizing services was because their session limit had been reached.

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Emma Chapin: 1500 into represents 3.6% of their sample and we recognize that that's a relatively small number, but sociology forces us to remember that those people are people who are deserving of care.

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Emma Chapin: Eisenberg and colleagues in 2011 found that most lifetime mental disorders have first onset by the typical college age of 18 to 24 years and early treatment has the potential to significantly improve long term diagnoses. This was reaffirmed by Duffy, and

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Emma Chapin: Who said that untreated or an adequately treated mental illness is associated with progression. It's more complex disorders school dropout addiction and self harm.

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Emma Chapin: Further research by people and colleagues in 2018 as students with mental illness to identify core services and strategies for supporting educational goals. This is what they came up with.

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Emma Chapin: Access to specialists meaning access to mental health counselors on campus emphasis on wellness as opposed to grades or attendance providing organizational skill support.

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Emma Chapin: And facilitating accommodations and it's important to note that several students at USF confided that the accommodations given to them three of the Disability Services Center are not enforced.

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Emma Chapin: And that could be the right to a note taker extensions on assignments, the right to get up and walk around a little bit, etc.

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Emma Chapin: Along with reviewing the existing literature data for this project was collected through three methods.

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Emma Chapin: One was an anonymous online survey of the student body using snap survey the survey went out to everybody at USF and I got a response rate of 437

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Emma Chapin: qualitative interviews with students, but I must note that this part of my research was dramatically reduced to do to the covert 19 outbreak and I was unfortunately only able to interview to students before

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Emma Chapin: Learning went digital and qualitative interviews with university mental health professionals.

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Emma Chapin: You the University of Southern Maine acknowledges the importance of offering mental health care for university students and counseling staff are passionate about providing the best care, they can with the resources they have

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Emma Chapin: This data comes from their appointment statistics from the 2018 2019 school year you eat CS has 5.5 full time equivalent counselors for a student body of 8000 on three campuses.

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Emma Chapin: We recognize that resources. Here are the problem you he recognizes that resources are the problem 5.5 full time counselors for 8000 students is inadequate.

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Emma Chapin: Students are allowed 12 mental health counseling appointments per academic year, which is roughly 30 weeks.

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Emma Chapin: And during the 2018 2019 school year you HCM held 3226 appointments for 618 clients averaging 5.2 to a client appointments per client.

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Emma Chapin: And although the average student utilize 5.2 to counseling sessions, the numbers break down to reveal that of the 618 students who utilize services.

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Emma Chapin: At for clients or 13.6% attended between 11 and two, and more than 21 appointments

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Emma Chapin: In an interview with the director of UX yes she informed me that students in crisis might continue to attend counseling until they're ready to move on to the community.

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Emma Chapin: And so that could account for some of this disparity.

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Emma Chapin: And these statistics show that you FCS knows that a sizable number of students need more than 12 sessions and will stretch the resources to support these students

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Emma Chapin: But it does pose the question of how many students are turned away, who would have benefited from more sessions or how many self removed because they believe their needs, would not be accommodated.

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Emma Chapin: This is data collected from the survey that I sent out to the student body of my 437 respondents 33.6% have utilized mental health counseling services at you ACS

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Emma Chapin: One interview, he said if I didn't end up going to counseling. I probably would have dropped out my freshman year. And I've heard that mentality echoed by several students with mental illness.

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Emma Chapin: 54% of respondents claim that poor mental health or mental illness has impacted their grades.

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Emma Chapin: 26% of respondents reported needing to take one or more semester away from college as a resource for mental health or mental illness and 22% of respondents reported using at least nine of their sessions.

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Emma Chapin: In surveying and talking to students. I've identified some barriers to accuracy mental health care. We've already said one at the university level its resources.

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Emma Chapin: Us. It just does not have enough counselors to support the students that need counseling.

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Emma Chapin: Eisenberg and colleagues found that the use of mental health services higher and smaller schools, noting that this may be related to a higher availability of resources.

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Emma Chapin: This implies that if there are enough counselors for the students. The students will utilize those resources, another barrier was transportation, the majority of students live on the campus and rely on public transportation

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Emma Chapin: Eisenberg and colleagues found that students living in campus housing or, more likely to use psychotherapy. The most common source of therapy in the sample which could imply the importance of proximity to receiving services.

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Emma Chapin: Our third barrier is finances. This chart comes from the survey that I sent out to the student body.

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Emma Chapin: As we can see, the majority of students who responded 40% could only use for to spend zero to $15 per mental health appointment.

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Emma Chapin: And only 9% of students could afford to spend more than $75 on mental health counseling research around the community has revealed that the majority of counselors in Portland.

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Emma Chapin: Start at a sliding scale of 80 to $200 per session, regardless of insurance. And so we can see that that is out of budget for the vast majority of students who responded to the survey.

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Emma Chapin: I repeated some possible solutions to help make counseling more accessible to students on campus.

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Emma Chapin: After student has reached their 12 session limit the student may be able to pay a small copay in order to continue seeing their counselor.

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Emma Chapin: The table on the previous slide shows that most students can pay zero to $15 per session.

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Emma Chapin: And amount that could contribute to the counseling budget and the ability to hire more counselors, this should be a sliding scale students who cannot pay should not be turned away and students who can afford to pay more should be encouraged to do so.

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Emma Chapin: I propose that we allow students 12 sessions per semester instead of per academic year. This is still fewer sessions. Then there are weeks in a semester but it does give the students, the freedom to see their counselor at least every other week.

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Emma Chapin: As students have already paid for their counseling sessions with their tuition. The survey using the research proposed the idea of donating unused sessions to students who need more than 12 93.6% of respondents showed a willingness and desire to donate their sessions.

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Emma Chapin: Mental illness is a very personal thing and it's vital to remember that not all students are average

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Emma Chapin: While students needing more than 12 sessions might be the minority, they are valued members of the university community and are deserving of care accessible mental health care is a vital service that the university has a responsibility to provide

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Emma Chapin: If you're interested in doing further research on this topic. These are the sources that I used.

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Emma Chapin: And this research would not have been possible without the unending support of family, friends and loved ones who put up with me when I was super annoying. And of course, Dr. Cheryl as without whom this literally would not have happened.

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Thanks.