Faculty/Staff Resources: Student Mental Health

We recommend: 

• Showing you care while maintaining appropriate boundaries and affirming your role as an instructor or staff member.
• Knowing about the resources available at UWL. 
  • Counseling and Testing (CTC)
    • free and confidential brief counseling services to all currently enrolled UWL students.
    • CTS also provides information on community mental health resources outside UWL.
• Approach students about whom you have concerns utilizing the types of strategies provided in the Kognito training. 
• Discussing the potential role of the ACCESS Center with a student who is in need of official accommodation for a documented mental health need. 
• Letting campus professionals know about your concerns for a student(s) when necessary.
  • Emergency situations (danger, immediate threat of suicide, harm to others):
    • Call University Police (608-789-9999) or 911.   
    • Urgent mental health situations: call CTC (M-F 8-4:30). After hours/weekend, call La Crosse County Mobile Crisis 608-784-HELP (4357)
  • Non-immediate concern for a student 
    • Student of Concern Report - report any concerning behaviors or refer students who may need support by using this form.
    • UWL’ s quick guide for helping distressed students  
• If comfortable doing so, offering to walk a student over to a resource (e.g., Health Center, Counseling Center, Student Life), or being with them as they call/message a resource.
• Instructors: Recognize the wide variation in student needs within a classroom when there is a campus-wide event such as a student suicide. Although there are students who will be vocal about the desire/need for class time to process the event, there will be many students seeking the routine of the classroom or other university activities. Indicating your own care and concern for students generally or a student who has passed is always appropriate in a general comment when authentic. 

 We do not recommend: 

• Sharing personal phone numbers and/or texting students
  • If personal numbers are shared, they should be used for class related business – availability, meetings, quick check-ins etc. 
  • If your goal is the ability to text about academic situations, consider using Navigate.
• Serving as a support person beyond helping students access resources. 
  • UWL has staff who are trained and willing to serve as student advocates.
• Speaking to a student’s family or friends about the student’s situation. The Office of Student Life will notify others if warranted. 
• Sharing your own current mental health challenges with students. Even when the intent is to convey empathy, it can serve to burden a student.

Have you ever been worried about a student or friend on campus? Faculty and staff are in an ideal position to recognize when someone is struggling emotionally and may need help. 

UWL’s quick guide for helping distressed students that includes information on helping to identify immediate need. 

Kognito’s At-Risk Mental Health virtual training is an online simulation that lets you practice conversations with a virtual student using AI technology, so you’ll know what to say in real life.  UWL is making this program available to faculty, staff, and students to help create a safer and more supportive campus. UWL strongly encourages all faculty and staff to complete the training. 

Note: Kognito is an excellent resource for learning how to recognize and respond to students in distress. Please note that this simulation was not developed to be specific to UWL. As such, there are a couple of UWL procedures about which you should be aware. When referring to the Counseling and Testing Center (CTC), students will need to make their own appointments; you cannot make one for them. Also, the Kognito training references a situation in which a staff member offered to call the counseling center for someone to come pick up a student with suicidal ideation. The CTC does not respond on site to crises and does not take custody of students. Faculty/staff should encourage and assist students in getting to the CTC for Urgent Care. If there is an immediate concern for safety of the student or others, or it is non-business hours, Campus Police should be called.  

Concerns about alcohol and/or drug abuse should be handled similarly to mental health concerns. Counseling and Testing or the Office of Student Life can both be a good place to refer students. 

UWL’s quick guide for helping distressed students includes information on helping to identify immediate need. 

BASICS - is a program to which you can refer students where they can meet with a facilitator to discuss alcohol and/or drug use. The Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students program is offered for any UWL students who wants to explore their alcohol and drug use, and the goal of the program is to reduce risky behaviors and harmful consequences of alcohol misuse. 

Kognito’s At-Risk Mental Health virtual training provides helpful ways to think about having referral conversations with students.

Department-Level Development 

• We recommend that faculty/instructors complete the Kognito’s At-Risk Mental Health virtual training and arrange for meetings within the department to discuss the training and further departmental needs. 
• Depending on staff availability, members of the Counseling & Testing Center may be able to provide a follow-up training for a department. 

 Classroom-Related Development 

• CATL (Center for Advancing Teaching & Learning) can be contacted for specific department-level discussions of classroom issues or individual consultations.   
• CATL can be contacted to provide trauma-informed teaching workshops. 
• CATL has materials on trauma informed teaching strategy guidance that span disciplinary content. 

 Individual Course Design 

• Faculty/instructors can work with CATL or other colleagues to design course content and assignments that best scaffold students to be academically successful. Students’ ability to be successful in courses has a reciprocal relationship with mental health. Students develop resilience and skills through successful management of projects/assignments for courses.  

• Examples? Providing feedback to drafts of big assignments; chunking big projects into smaller units 

• Late work and attendance policies that are consistent but allow for potential individual concerns such as each student is allowed a few free misses or can enact one later deadline. CATL has developed a site with options for potential classroom policies based on rigor, flexibility, and balance that may serve to make expectations clear, provide some flexibility, and not increase instructional workload.
  

For mental health concerns, we recommend that faculty/staff refer to the Counseling & Testing Center (CTC) as the primary resource. YOU@UWL (https://you.uwlax.edu/) is a one-stop wellness resource that also links to crisis resources and connects students with on-campus CTC or Mantra virtual mental health services.

The CTC offers emergency services, individual and group counseling, and self-help options. Students in immediate crisis are triaged.  

• Counseling and Testing (CTC)
  • free and confidential brief counseling services to all currently enrolled UWL students.
  • includes information on community mental health resources outside UWL. 
  • has a service for students to explore the idea of counseling called Let’s Talk
  • Note: If a student is reluctant to approach CTC, they will sometime be amenable to the Campus Health Center and/or the Office of Student Life.   

• UWL Employees have access to free short-term counseling through the Employee Assistance Program. 
• The Counseling and Testing Center site includes a list of 24/7 resources outside of UWL.
• You@UWL - although geared toward students - has online wellness resources.