Mental health and security critical to student success

University of West Florida student Timothy Jones stood in front of legislators, students, university officials and journalists at Florida’s Capitol on Wednesday, and told them about his time in the military and his resulting struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. Without the university counseling centers, said the senior communications major, he might not be on the path to graduate this spring.

Timothy’s story, told during a news conference highlighting the State University System budget requests, represents one of more than 24,700 cases annually in which university counseling centers were a critical factor in student success. In fact, Florida’s 12 universities have seen a 55 percent increase in the number of clients and a 65 percent increase in the number of counseling sessions provided since 2008-2009, and the demand has far outpaced the ability of universities to keep up.

That need is why the State University System is working to keep the issue front-and-center this year as we advocate for $14 million for university mental health and security. The funding would help add 137 mental health staff and 150 police officers to Florida’s universities and bring them up to minimum national recommended ratios in both areas.

The law enforcement component of the request can be explained simply. Mass shootings have called for a different kind of policing in recent years, and that requires more staff and better equipment. But the country’s mental health crisis (and it is, indeed, a crisis) has snuck up quietly, and the solutions are complex.

A national survey of student counseling centers found that 41 percent of students are seeking individual or group counseling, up from 9 percent in 2006. Of those student clients, 52 percent had serious psychological issues and 26 percent were on psychiatric medication. Another national survey of students found that 57 percent were experiencing overwhelming anxiety and 35 percent said they were so depressed it was “difficult to function.”

Meanwhile, the demand for services in Florida continues to rise at an alarming rate. Between the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years, the number of emergency or crisis visits more than doubled from 4,200 to 9,100, mostly due to severe depression, acute anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Over the same span, the number of involuntary Baker Act hospitalizations rose from 300 to 440 students. Mental health professionals have asserted various reasons for the spike in recent years, including higher levels of anxiety and depression resulting from information and technology overload, increased financial stress, and inadequate community mental health programs. Additionally, an increasing number of students are arriving on campus with pre-existing emotional and behavioral health issues.

To address the volume of students seeking help, universities have expanded initiatives to identify and monitor students with serious mental or behavioral problems and implemented measures that promote campus safety while also impacting student retention and success. But as resources are redirected to meet the needs of the soaring number of students seeking mental health counseling, those programs are struggling.

To optimize student success and safety, we must acknowledge that mental health services and law enforcement officers are areas of critical importance. That’s the only way to keep our campuses secure and our students like Timothy and so many others on the path to healthy, successful lives.

Between the 201415 and 2015-16 academic years, the number of emergency or crisis visits more than doubled from 4,200 to 9,100, mostly due to severe depression, acute anxiety, and suicidal ideation.