The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) is collaborating with the university’s administration to launch a new 24-hour mental health service called “Empower Me.”
The new service is free for Carleton students and will cater to their specific needs via either in person consultation, by telephone, video-counselling, or through e-counselling.
While being a stand-alone mental health resource, it will also connect students to existing on-campus and Ottawa-based mental health services—including guidance on other concerns such as life coaching, financial literacy and nutrition.
Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Carleton’s president and vice-chancellor, said Empower Me is part of an ongoing effort to introduce more on-campus counselling at Carleton.
“We have many resources on campus, and this is an important way of providing students ways to access those,” Bacon said. “Prioritizing mental health is an important part of our ongoing initiatives in collaborating with student groups on campus.”
CUSA president David Oladejo said the new service aims to lessen the burden on Health and Counselling Services at Carleton.
“We don’t think we’re going to eliminate wait times with this, but certainly reduce it,” Oladejo said, adding waiting periods for students to access counselling can last up to six weeks at a time from his experience.
“Our campus is a growing campus, we know students have difficulty getting to see a counsellor. . . we decided we wanted to see it on campus and as a program students didn’t have to pay for.”
Oladejo said video-counselling is one of many unique features in the new service.
“There’s a number of really cool things about this program—it’s also offered in about 100 languages,” he said. “Video-counselling is another accommodation they’ve made for students that might not always be able to take out time to meet with counsellors in person.”
He added the counsellors employed for the service are hired through an external company. Counsellors on call must have a bare minimum of a bachelor of social work degree.
Suzanne Blanchard, Carleton vice-president (students and enrolment), said the new project displays the new administration’s commitment to mental health.
“As a community, everyone has a role to play in mental health and to help students that are struggling,” Blanchard said, adding that the university also has a similar project for graduate students in the works.
“We need to increase awareness, but we also need many different options for students on campus. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approch we’re taking with mental health.”
Rachel Campbell, a third-year political science student and a current CUSA councillor, said she’s never used crisis services like this before but can see how it could be helpful.
“I mean life gets hectic, it’s good to know it’s there and to have that flexibility,” Campbell said.
But, third-year English student Sarah Lam said she doesn’t think the service is for her.
“I use a counsellor for that face-to-face interaction and I actually really like it—I don’t see myself using this service,” she said.
According to Oladejo, the service will track students’ usage on a monthly basis to measure the program’s success. He added Carleton administration will then use the data collected to tailor the program around students’ needs after looking at it over the next year.
The service went live on Nov. 12. Carleton students can now call the toll free number 1-844-741-6389 to access the service.
—With files from Temur Durrani
Photo by Tim Austen
