“The cyber attack really put a damper on things because it made me get behind in my schoolwork and once the internet got back up I was so behind in my schoolwork that I felt like I couldn’t catch up. The cyber attack was the beginning of what she recalls to be a downward spiral of her mental health. She is one of many students on campus who was affected by two of the major infamous events in the beginning of the school year: the cybersecurity attack and the Blackburn protest. Nagea Kirkley, 20, is a junior from Atlanta, Georgia. Like other students across the nation, Howard students have to balance their academics, social lives and mental health, but Howard students also have had to cope with the on-campus obstacles. “It doesn’t matter if you go to a Duke or a Harvard, whatever the case may be – this is the field of mental health.” “The amount of students to the amount of clinicians will never match up,” Dr. She is the director of outreach at HU Counseling Services. To be overwhelmed, though, is almost exactly what Dr. “In a workday, things may become overwhelming, certainly,” Jackson-Lampley said. Hummings suggests that HU Counseling Services “would benefit from additional staff members and additional resources” and with that, “we’d be better able to meet the mental health needs of the student population.”
However, no matter how seriously they take it, the disparity has counselors and therapists scrambling to provide their services.
Stacey Jackson-Lampley, chief psychologist and director of clinical services, said. “We know the field that we’ve chosen, and we take it seriously,” Dr. Therefore, there are nine staff members who serve over 10,000 students.ĭespite the apparent disparity in the counseling staff to student ratio, Howard’s counseling services are working to acknowledge and adhere to students’ needs and concerns. They have five licensed psychologists, three licensed-eligible psychologists who are licensed just in D.C., one full-time clinician and two part-time clinicians. The services are responsible for undergraduates and graduate students. HU Counseling Services try to see students within five to six business days of a request. According to Hummings, in the private sector, it can take two to three months to be able to see a counselor.
In the United States, there are 30 therapists for every 100,000 people. Marcus Hummings, interim executive director of HU Counseling Services, said that, “With global issues, with current political issues, with current societal issues in this country and from recent events on this campus, everybody’s focus on mental health is becoming more and more important.”ĭue to heightened focus on mental health, there is a severe imbalance of access to social workers, counselors and therapists because of the number of people reaching out to them at once. The heightened state that this country is in feels like we’re always on the verge of having a civil war, civil unrest,” Willis said.ĭr. “You got to campus this year you had a cyber-attack, you had an insurrection last year, now we have repetitive bomb threats. In addition to the COVID-19 environment, students on campus have been experiencing numerous other stress-inducing occurrences. If you’re a freshman, you lost your senior year due to COVID… I think the mental aspect of all of this is affecting you guys, and I’m surprised a lot of you are standing and pushing through and persevering because that is a lot to deal with at the age of 17, 18, 19, 20.” Evidence suggests that mental disorders have significantly spiked in frequency as students nationwide cope with the COVID-19 era.Īs Howard’s Director of Sports and Medicine Athletics Lyson Willis said, “If you’re a sophomore, you dealt with the COVID year. Mental Health of America reported that 15.08 percent of youth, aged 12-17, reported having major depressive episodes. The CDC reported that anxiety and depression amongst adults had increased 5.1 percent from August, 2020, to early 2021. The Hilltop examined the extent to which the stability of students’ mental health has been challenged. The unanticipated events that have made headlines throughout the school year have perhaps made residual impacts on the mental well-being of Howard community members. Protests, floods, cyber-attacks, bomb threats, COVID-19.
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