The Emmons Wellness Center is offering a new mental health service to Occidental students starting this semester, according to an Aug. 31 email from Emmons. The Health Promotion Program is facilitated by the Health Promotion Specialist, Laura Fettig, alongside five peer mentors.
The program entails drop-in hours and various workshops. According to Fettig, the Health Promotion drop-in hours are centered on connecting students to external mental health resources. Fettig said this model differs from the therapy session drop-ins already offered at Emmons, as the program is intended to be preemptive and equip students with the tools they need to prevent a mental health crisis.
“Sometimes you just need someone to sit down with you and figure out your login to your health insurance, or even if you’re like, ‘I don’t even know what health insurance I have,’ I can sit down with you and be like, ‘Okay, here’s how you figure it out,’” Fettig said. “Here’s how you look for a therapist, let’s see who’s nearby. Let’s make a list of people you want to speak to.”
Fettig said that students can now visit her drop-in hours and will be able to do the same with the peer mentors starting sometime in mid-October.
According to peer mentor Dominique Cabading (sophomore), the peer mentors have been in training since a week prior to the start of the Fall semester and are set to finish by the end of September. She said that once their training is completed, they will lead workshops titled “Overdose Prevention & Naloxone Training,” “Self-Care & Resilience” and “Deconstructing Impostor ‘Syndrome.’”
“I recommend all of [the workshops]” Cabading said. “All of them you can request online and it’s just nice that that’s an option. You don’t have to go ask someone in person.”
Students can fill out the request form online to participate in any of the offered workshops or suggest an idea for a new workshop. According to Fettig, the forms should be submitted at least two weeks in advance to allow the team sufficient time to gather resources and prepare.
Grace Adler (junior), a fellow peer mentor, said the program is unique from other mental health services offered at Emmons and is intended to destigmatize the process of seeking mental health treatment. Adler said that being able to talk to a fellow student as a mental health resource could be less intimidating for some. According to Fettig, Adler and Cabading, anxiety and academic stress appear to be the predominant causes of mental health issues on campus.
“I think academics are definitely the main stress factor,” Cabading said. “I feel like a lot of people are used to being at the top of the class, but at Oxy, it’s really hard to be that.”
A student who wished to remain anonymous said he struggles with anxiety and panic attacks, an experience he said is shared by many of his peers as well. He said that there has been an instance where he felt his mental health struggle was not adequately supported on campus.
“I went [to Emmons] after having a panic attack and they said that it was 30 minutes past the time that they had drop-in hours and that drop-in hours were only available during weekdays,” he said. “It was sort of like, ‘what do I do with this?’ And then I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll just schedule a therapy session,’ and they scheduled it two weeks [later].”
The student said there is a need for longer drop-in hours and more available on-campus therapists. According to Adler, the Health Promotion program is set to improve this.
“There’s going to be a lot more hours once the peer health educators start their own drop-in hours. We’re going to have multiple times a week,” Adler said. “We’re a lot of different people, we have our specialties, we have our own sects that we can educate people on.”
Contact Sydney Rey at reys@oxy.edu
