Students at risk for suicide may soon be able to identify their mental health conditions and potentially get help from a UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services representative ““ all anonymously.
Counseling and Psychological Services is teaming with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to offer an anonymous online survey that asks students questions about their mental health and current condition.
The survey, called the Interactive Screening Program, will be open to graduate and professional students in its initial stages, though Counseling and Psychological Services officials hope to expand the service to undergraduates in 2013, said Elizabeth Gong-Guy, director of UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services.
The program is intended to make it easier for students, who may not be comfortable otherwise, to ask a professional for help, she said.
If the survey results imply a potential suicide risk, a professional counselor reaches out to the student to chat online about what is upsetting them.
There is no way for Counseling and Psychological Services to trace students using the system, unless the student provides personal information willingly, Gong-Guy said.
Counseling and Psychological Services officials decided to only offer the program to graduate and professional students because the student group can be more isolated than other communities on campus because of the nature of their work, Gong-Guy said.
“(The tool allows students) to begin the process in an anonymous way and test the waters and become comfortable with this sort of interaction,” she said.
The new survey program has been in the works for about four years now, Gong-Guy said.
Counseling and Psychological Services has a limited number of staff, which delayed the program’s implementation. Grant funding from the California Mental Health Services Administration has made it possible for UCLA to hire clinicians who can focus on responding to and working with the interactive screening program.
UCLA is not the first UC campus to implement the tool, but it is the first UC campus to launch the tool with Institutional Review Board approval ““ a process that takes months but allows the university to analyze and publish the data the program records.
Compiled by Alessandra Daskalakis, Bruin senior staff.