To reach regional campus students, Utah State counselors try broadcasting workshops

Utah State University’s Counseling and Psychological Services center is now broadcasting counseling workshops to the university’s regional campuses.

Leaders from CAPS made the decision to broadcast their workshops to other Utah State University campuses last month. The results, so far, have been varied.

“It has worked well for some of our topics,” said LuAnn Helms, the assistant director of CAPS.

So far the classes have only had between five to 12 students attending, but Helms believes that by next semester more students will participate and CAPS will be able to better determine which topics work well via broadcast and which don’t.

“We will try it again next semester and try to get more people,” Helms said.

CAPS began offering counseling workshops for students in 2011, allowing students to sit together and discuss ways to deal with different issues they faced, such as dealing with stress, building resilience and getting healthy sleep. In the past, the workshops were only offered on Utah State’s central campus in Logan, but students from other USU campuses wanted to use the workshops as well.

“Students were contacting us and asking to participate in our workshops,” Helms said.

Other employees at CAPS hope the new method of providing counseling will help ease the burden mental health professionals throughout Utah are facing.

“In general there is a shortage of mental health professionals,” said Charles Bentley, a staff psychologist at CAPS. “More and more people are seeking mental health services, and it’s hard to hit that sweet spot where you have the right amount of people out there in the world available to help matched with however many people seeking help.”