Northwell Health Behavioral Health College Partnership
I was you know suffering from a lot of stress and anxiety it was very difficult for me to continue to function let alone do school College is a critical time for students mental health because it is a time where a many mental illnesses emerge and start to cause dysfunction approximately 12 to 18 percent of undergraduates are experiencing a mental illness and now suicide is a leading cause of death in college students we found that there was a huge gap when it came to college students and providing mental health services because their needs are so different than the non college population starting college is definitely a scary time you’re going through a time where you’re kind of shaping who you are and figuring out you know what is your identity who are you young people are confronted with the stresses of leaving home and negotiating completely new environments and sometimes that stress can unmask a major psychiatric illness psychiatric hospitalizations of college students have tripled since 1994 college counseling centers were really not equipped to handle the levels of mental health issues that we started seeing we had very limited options when it came to acute mental health crisis what usually happens was we would call 9-1-1 the local police would show up and then the student would be transported to the local county hospital we’ve seen students yet handcuffed and put in police cars and the student is further traumatized once the student was in the county hospital we completely lost track of a student college students were being put on these units where they didn’t really fit in commingling a college student with a general psychiatric patient population can be very traumatic so recognizing that we figured we need to do something different the mission is to help students in psychiatric crisis get back to their normal lives get back to their academic functioning and now we’re at 36 schools all over the New York metro area we’ve had many students hospitalized with diagnoses ranging from transient suicidality substance use that resulted in behavioral abnormalities and the first manifestation of an underlying serious psychiatric condition like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia since the behavioral health college partnership came about now we have a protocol in place we looked at how can we create a transportation method that won’t traumatize students we then tracked the student throughout the IDI keep in contact with the school so there are no surprises the student is discharged the school knows that this concerning student is headed back to the campus and they can provide the appropriate care for that student if the student is admitted they are able to alert staff that the student won’t be in class for the next couple of days and that they may need extra time to make up their work one unique part of this program which we’ve never experienced with other hospital admissions is they will contact us for collateral information so it’s methodical it’s a team approach it’s just a wonderful way to treat the student we’re very excited about the new hospital and the dedicated unit for young adults and college students coming to the Side Hospital my first impression was this isn’t just any old facility this is specifically designed for you know people my age there’s specific clinical things that we’ve done on this unit that are meant for college students that we’ve learned through time students need your setup in a comfortable environment in a place where they kind of understand where you’re coming from we aim to create an environment that’s safe and where our students feel really supported when they land on that unit they look around and they see all their peers in their college sweatshirts and their t-shirts and their pajama pants walking around and what looks like a dorm and immediately it normalizes the situation I definitely felt that I was surrounded by people who are going through the same problem I was going through with this program we have a much higher success rate of recovery then we had without this program we think that we can become not only a regional center but a national center since treatment I’ve got back to school I’m studying engineering environmental engineering I’m hoping to make a career out of that I really you know help me out the environment it’s the feeling of hope the ultimate success is seeing someone like Ruben and Ruben is just one of me [Music]
Northwell Health Behavioral Health College Partnership is a unique community service program that works with undergraduate and graduate college/university students affected by acute mental health issues to access evidence-based behavioral health services.
Northwell Health is New York state’s largest healthcare provider, with 23 hospitals, 650 outpatient facilities and nearly 15,000 affiliated physicians. We’re here to set the standard of care for our communities—and make the 2 million-plus patients we treat every year not only healthier, but happier. With over 66,000 employees, we have the brainpower to dream up new possibilities, and the manpower to make them a reality. Visit https://www.northwell.edu/
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