The University Counseling Center received a funding increase of $3 per full-time student to increase staffing after seeing a 30 percent increase in use from this time last year, according to Johann Fiore-Conte, the director of health and counseling services at Binghamton University.
“We then wrote a proposal to administration to increase funds to able us to hire the full-time equivalent of a counselor and a physician for a year,” she said.
The University Counseling Center is fully funded by the student health services portion of tuition, which also funds the Decker Student Health Services Center. The amount of funding is now about $181 per full-time student.
When a student goes to the Counseling Center, he or she must fill out paperwork and set up an intake appointment to assess his or her needs. If the student’s condition is found to be too complex for the staff, or if the staff is fully booked, they are referred to an off-campus mental health center.
“Counselors only have so many hours in a day, so non-emergency students can either choose to sit on the waitlist or be referred off campus for consultation,” Fiore-Conte said.
A Binghamton University student wrote in an email to Pipe Dream saying that she sought help from the University Counseling Center due to a long-standing history of depression, anxiety and recovery from an eating disorder.
“I filled out my paperwork which asked a ton of questions about my history, which I answered honestly. There were a lot of questions about being or having been suicidal,” she wrote. “At the time of this appointment, I hadn’t been legitimately suicidal in about 3 years, but as soon as I checked ‘yes’ on having ever had thoughts of suicide, I felt the attitude towards me change. The way they treated me once I admitted to having been suicidal was like I was a liability.”
After the initial intake appointment, she wrote that she was referred to an off-campus mental health clinic due to a lack of expertise of the Counseling Center staff.
“After my first appointment, I scheduled a second one at which time I was told that my case was too complex for them to handle and that they were referring me to a therapist off campus. I told them I couldn’t see someone off campus because I couldn’t afford it and also because I didn’t have a car,” she wrote in an email. “I was very upset; the way they went about it made me feel like I was too messed up for them.”
Fiore-Conte said that there will be better management of the waitlist and increased availability for students to acquire mental help thanks to the increased funding.
“We have been increasing staff since 2009 to meet the increasing student demand for counseling,” she said.
Fiore-Conte said that all students who are on the waitlist choose to be on the waitlist, and for those students who are in extreme crisis there are emergency hours Monday through Friday from 2 to 4 p.m., which do not have a waitlist and are done day by day. Also, if a student is in a crisis not during that time, they should call 911.
Maggie Morrisey, a junior majoring in human development, has been visiting the Counseling Center since her freshman year and found the experience to be a positive one.
“They work hard to provide you with all the advice and resources to help you with whatever you need, even if it’s just having someone to listen to your problems and help you work through them,” Morrisey said. “The Counseling Center has seriously helped me deal with my anxiety in a healthy way.”
Lisa Stockman, a junior majoring in psychology, said that she went to the Counseling Center in the fall of her freshman year to get help for anxiety and minor depression and was referred off campus due to a lack of staff availability.
“When I first went to the Counseling Center and filled out the forms, I was told to sign up for an appointment because there was a waiting list, so I booked the earliest one available which was three weeks from that time,” she said. “At the appointment it seemed like she was just assessing me rather than giving me advice or feedback. After about 20 minutes she referred me to another mental health center because she said they can only take on patients who are in dire need of it.”
Stockman said that the psychiatric center to which the Counseling Center referred her put her on an even longer waitlist.
“The psych center that the counselor referred me to had a huge waitlist, they got back to me two months after I called them to say that they were just nearing my name,” she said. “I ended up having to do my own research about affordable social workers in the area.”
Despite the problems that some students have found with the counseling services on campus, Morrisey said that she still thought it was an important and positive experience.
“Everyone who works at the Counseling Center is welcoming and genuinely wants to help you,” she said. “I encourage anyone who is considering it to just go and try it out, you won’t regret it.”