SOUND COMMUNITY BRINGS CLINICIAN TO MITCHELL COLLEGE

New London — City nonprofit Sound Community Services has placed a social worker on the Mitchell College campus fulltime to help improve students’ well-being, the college said in a news release.

The nonprofit, which focuses on behavioral health and substance abuse issues, opened its Monday-to-Friday campus office in mid-September. Other Sound staffers are available to students or advisors who need help after-hours or on weekends, the release said.

Sound can help students with everything from medicine management and therapist referrals to suggestions on nutrition or how to overcome shyness.

“We can build a stronger college and, by extension, a stronger New London if instead of trying to invent everything on this campus, we partner with the people who have the expertise,” Mitchell President Janet Steinmayer said. “That is the philosophy we have here.”

Gino DeMaio, chief executive officer of Sound, said it’s the first time his agency has partnered with an educational institution.

“We are really excited,” DeMaio said. “We both have a shared vision of what we want to do here.”

Mitchell also has partnered with the city’s Flock Theatre, which agreed to stage three or four public productions at the Mitchell College Red Barn each year, enlisting Mitchell students to help run the box office, act and build sets.

Such partnerships expand “what students can draw on and have access to on a small college campus,” Steinmayer said.