Specifications include, but are not limited to: A third party to improve the capacity and availability of mental health services for our students. The service needs to provide high quality, short-term counseling services as well as emergent referral services to all students 24/7/365. There are a limited number of qualified counselors employed by the college and none are easily available after hours. With guidance from CCRI the service will work with local providers, community groups, health care and emergency response organizations to create a seamless referral network for the various mental health needs of our students. Access to quality mental health care will allow our students to get support sooner, mitigate compounding impacts from stress and anxiety, and avoid long-term complications from lack of treatment that will allow for better personal and academic outcomes. Small group sessions, supervised peer-to-peer programs and text options provide additional benefit to our students. The service needs to provide daily updates on emergent concerns to on campus staff responsible for student health and safety. It should also provide ongoing and regular aggregate reports of usage, services sought, outcomes, and client satisfaction in compliance with the standards of professional counseling and state laws.
