I think it is a lot easier to talk about mental health than it was. But I think there's still the issue that as we're talking about it, we're all still fighting those little biases back there. Clinicians, family members, and the people that experience it. It can take a long time for somebody that's experiencing depressive symptoms to go to a doctor, or even just go to a friend because of the stigma that surrounds mental health. College brings a large lifestyle change for many folks as a traditional student returning to school after having a few years out of high school, or even more than a few years, balancing studies, adult life a job kids, these are all very stressful events, and they can tax someone's mental health.
This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College, I'm your host Steve Fast. Whether it's new stresses or an existing mental health challenge that people have been dealing with awareness and treatment are extremely important towards maintaining one's health. Today, we're going to talk about the challenges specifically for college students with mental health and the resources that are available for mental health issues.
My name is Sarah Stalter. I'm the Assistant Director of Behavioral Health coordination for McLean County. That's its own little Department under the behavioral health Coordination Council with the county government. So the department has kind of a lot of things go on. The main thing is the mental health action plan for the county. Anything that falls within that falls within our purview. We also have the intensive outpatient program, the fuse program, that sentence outpatient program, we how's the county's trauma informed initiative rise, and then we also organize the county's community behavioral health forum that we have every year. And that's why I'm here today is about the sixth annual Community Behavioral Health Forum coming up on October 19.
My name is Amy Jeck, I am the Coordinator of Student Wellness here at Heartland Community College as well as the secretary of Nami mid Central Illinois. As a current student, as well as staff member with lived experience with mental health. I will be speaking on a panel at the Behavioral Health Forum that Sarah just mentioned, I have a passion for mental health and wellness, programming and advocacy. And that's why I'm here today.
On campuses, whether it be at Heartland or anywhere else, how aware are students generally of resources that are available for mental health support? Do our students know that there are these resources available, and they should be paying attention to their own mental health?
I'll go ahead, I think that it's becoming more and more on the top of people's radars or at the surface of people's thoughts. I am still surprised at the amount of students who come in and ask how much it costs for counselling here at Heartland. I think students aren't aware of a lot of the free or Pay What You Can services that are available at the campus as well as in the community. I think that something that is really important in advocacy and trying to prevent suicide and other crises, is making sure that students know where the access they have to the services. So accessibility is really important.
So Sarah, from a community standpoint, can you talk a little bit about accessibility for anyone in the area?
I think it has definitely increased. I agree, I am still surprised sometimes with the worries about accessibility, because I think it is better than it was. But I think there are still some significant barriers, finances being one of them. Even individuals with insurance, sometimes insurance will pick up like 10% 30%, if you have a therapist that builds a 200 bucks, like that still is not affordable, even if you have insurance. So I think finances can be a big barrier, we have a really good transportation system, especially for being in a more rural area. That still is a barrier for a lot of people. If you're not familiar with the bus, if where you want to go is not on the bus line. That can be a major barrier for people to get services, not to mention just the general mental health aspect of getting services. There's still so much stigma, which is been part of my like the top of my priorities in planning the forum was stigma reduction and reducing barriers and accessibility to the forum.
I think it is a lot easier to talk about mental health than it was. But I think there's still the issue that as we're talking about it, we're all still fighting those little biases back there. Clinicians, family members, and the people that experience it, it can take a long time for somebody that's experiencing depressive symptoms to go to a doctor or even just go to a friend because of the stigma that surrounds mental health. I think that is being approached really well in the community. You know, we have bodies now that like the behavioral health coordinating council that really tried to address that the alcohol at bhcc is behavioral health Coordinating Council. PHCC is comprised of Oh goodness, I'd say like 20 different community members, everyone from the CEO of McLean County Center for Human Services, which is
major organization that provides mental health services to one of the Human Resources executives from State Farm. It is a big body of really wide variety of people there to talk about what are the issues? What, what are the silos, like what keeps clients, or individuals or patients or whatever you want to say what keeps people from getting to services? I think there's more conversation about it. And at least that as a start, I think we're doing pretty good in the community in that.
So Amy, you mentioned that not only are you working in this field at Harlan community college, but you're also currently a student speaking from a student perspective, what do you see, as far as I mean, are there any trends, any concerns is there you know, we just came out of COVID. And that really, mental health was talked about a lot then for students, because of the changes in the environment in the learning environment? So is there something that you have a little bit of a more close relationship with seeing amongst, in a general sense college students right now with mental health issues?
Yeah, I would say that you're correct. The pandemic brought mental health to the surface for a lot of people. And I think that it has provided people an opportunity to kind of reflect on their mental health needs. Something I'm noticing a lot in students now is that the students who have maybe struggled in the past are finding a lot of passion to want to advocate and to want to help other students recognize that recovery is possible. Something that I have heard a lot, I also advise Nami on campus here at Heartland which is a student led mental health advocacy group.
And something that those students have all expressed sharing a similar experience of is that it was hard for them to get taken seriously, because they might have been high performing students, they might have had school and a job. And so people will say, Oh, well, you're balancing these things, you're able to function in society. So you're fine. So they didn't take them seriously. And those students didn't get the help they need until they were in crisis. And so something that I really wanted to make sure that I voiced during this time was that, you know, check in on your students who are high functioning in quotes, check on your students who are getting good grades who are doing the most, when anyone, any student, even if they seem to be very successful, they bring up concerns, it, it should be really taken seriously.
When you talk about physical health, there is not everybody does it, but there are a lot of resources for preventative health care, you know, for instance, Harlem community college students can use the recreation center, you know, to help with their physical health probably helped with their mental health as well at some case, to be able to do those things. And they always say, you know, get a checkup, do these things to make sure that you don't get to a point where you have more serious issue, when it comes to preventing a mental health problem to the point where you might be feeling crisis, what are the resources that are offered to help people kind of do a mental health checkup, or to de stress or to do that preventative maintenance to make sure that their mental health is being looked after the same way that someone might look after their physical health?
Well, interesting thing with like, mental health is I mean, you take your mind with you everywhere, those preventative things, you can do them everywhere. When I went through my training to be a recovery specialist, I'm a certified recovery support specialist with the state of Illinois, one of the things that they really stressed was when you're talking about coping skills, and those skills that help not just prevent, but also if there are situations deescalate, that you make them accessible, you make them that there aren't those barriers to using them, you don't need to go to a gym, to meditate, you don't need to necessarily go to your therapist to do those breathing techniques.
That is kind of the nice thing about a lot of those, I think there are a lot of different things either within our community, but just in general that has increased access to those. I mean, just the amount of mental health apps that are out there, I have tried downloading them, it can actually be a little overwhelming to try and like go through them and figure out like, which one do I want to use, because there are so many different options now of like meditation apps. So I think there has been increased accessibility to those types of things. And I think that that's the case probably on college campuses, too.
So I mean, specific to Heartland, what are some of the things that are offered to students to allow them to kind of check up on their mental health and get to the point where maybe they can not feel that they reach a crisis point, as you mentioned earlier?
So of course, we offer free individual and virtual counseling to students here at Heartland but we also have what I believe is called our stress reduction lab, but it's just a set of Stress Reduction Services. So we have everything from like biofeedback technology, where students can practice breathing techniques that will calm their nervous system with a game on a computer. Like it's very Cool. And once you've practiced that kind of breathing, I'm really glad that Sara brought that up our breath is the tool that we have with us constantly, that we can really anchor into to take control of a situation. And I think sometimes we forget about that.
So I'm really glad that breathwork was brought up, because that is a preventative measure that you can use daily, consistently. We also have a massage chair up here that is free for students to use, we have little Buddha boards, and we have a TV that you can do guided meditations and you don't need an appointment for that with a counselor, all you have to do is bring your person up. As long as those things aren't already in use, students can use them. And I do think we're doing a better job of building awareness of these resources for students. But I do think that in between understanding the resources you have and getting to them is still that stigma that Sarah brought up earlier.
So I think one of the really cool things that I'm hoping Nami on campus will provide as a safe place for students to come in normalize talking about their mental health, talking about recovery and access to resources, so that maybe we can start diminishing that stigma so that it's used more often, because we have a lot of really cool, really up to date, different things that can we have robotic therapy animals, we have a cat that purrs, there's so many things, even coloring books, there's so many things that you can do that you might think are like childish, or playful, or a waste of time that really help your nervous system switch to I am not in danger, I am safe. I'm just coloring right now. And so there are a lot of preventative self care, I think is something that I'm hoping there's going to be a lot more of a push for, because crisis is very important that we have programming around that resources. And if we want to have less and less crisis we need to be putting in to place those preventative measures.
You just mentioned a number of things with technology that allow people to individually kind of deal with distressing and preventative measures. But is there an element of technology that's not for that that does affect people's mental health as well, you know, you hear people talk for decades now about screen time, there's a lot of concern about what ages people should be involved with social media and the effect that social media has, especially on people that are high school age, and even college age, are you seeing that affect mental health? And is there any education Sara, that you're doing or should be done for people to kind of understand how they might engage with some of those things that we all do? I mean, even just people that watch TV, but eight, nine hours a day, that's not necessarily the best thing for you?
Absolutely. It's really interesting that you brought that up because we actually have a session at the forum about digital wellbeing that the there's gonna be three individuals from ISU eSports group that I think their League of Legends head coach, the assistant director, and there's a third, they're going to talk about how important it is to maintain your mental health when you are so plugged in to the digital world. I actually just learned the term Doom scrolling not too long ago, I had no idea what it was because I had I think it was a co worker that was like, Oh my gosh, I hit the Doom scrolling notification on Tik Tok.
And I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. The Tik Tok like after you have scrolled for a certain amount of time will like ask if you're sure if you like want to keep scrolling or like if you want to take a break, kind of thing. But it happens after like two hours. And to me that was a huge like, there are people that scroll through for tic tac for two hours straight. Like there's only 24 hours in the day. Like that is a long time to be plugged into like your phone or your computer or something like that, that is obviously going to have an impact on your mental health.
Just from the physiological standpoint of you're this far from a tiny little screen with the blue light shooting into your eyes. I think there's some interesting things happening with technology to try and prevent that. I know a lot of people that wear blue light glasses. Now, I do it a lot. I know I'm going to be on the screen, especially if I'm going to be like on Canva doing designing stuff for work, wear them. And that can help because like even just that light can impact my mental health I notice.
Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the things you mentioned earlier regarding stigmatization and how there might be some misconceptions about mental health. I think the hardest thing to do for any effort along these lines is to get people to take it seriously to take it seriously for themselves think how it might apply to them. And either you can take this, but what are some of the things that you see as a way to break down that barrier to connect with people so they do have a mindfulness about their own mental state, you know, in their mental health.
One of the things I think of and I'll bring up the forum again, is I don't think we just need to talk about mental health. I think people with a history of mental health need to be the ones talking about mental health. One of the things I've been very intentional about with planning the Forum this year. was that people with lived experience are on the panels, they're giving the presentations, it's a really good mix this year of professionals, people with lived experience, and both some, some are professionals with lived experience. Because you know, we can talk about mental health till the cows come home. But until it like you have somebody that can like talk about what it's really like, and really drive home that personal aspect for some people, it's just not going to click.
And unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't hit for people until it's personal until you find out that that brother that is super high functioning, that always has it together. They've had panic attacks for the past six years, and you had no idea because they've always kept it together. And so they don't want to show you but as soon as that comes out, so sometimes, unfortunately, that is the big catalyst for people to go, oh, wow, that makes a lot of sense. So I think that personalization aspect can really help. I think that's really hard to do that, unfortunately puts a lot of pressure on people with mental health experience, it shouldn't have to be that I mean, there's just kind of how stigma works, unfortunately, that it's the ones that have experienced that that sometimes have to speak up about it. And that's, that's not really fair. And at the same time, sometimes it's the most effective, the people that you know, sometimes can speak to you the best.
So Amy, I know that you are involved with some student organizations where there are people that are advocates for mental health that that have seen the benefits for themselves in handling it and talking about it, can you can you elaborate a little bit more on what Sarah said,
I really appreciate what Sarah brought to the table with that, because I think it really ties into my perspective of it is that for me, in my own lived experience, peer support is when I started to take it seriously, when I found a support group of people who have had similar experiences, and who were not there to try and make everyone comfortable with what happened to me or how I, you know, disorderly learned to deal with it. But everyone was there to bring to the table what they had, it changed my life, I went to a support group at stepping stones here in the community. And it was the catalyst for me getting into recovery.
So I have four mental health diagnoses. And two of them, I did not share with people for years, because there was so much stigma. And then as I got into recovery, I still found myself being scared to say it because if I tell them while I'm in recovery, they're going to think all of these things that I used to do, were still true about me. And so it became really hard to kind of organize my thoughts of who I am in recovery. And like what that means in advocacy and stuff. And I think there's really right that it's shouldn't always be up to the people that have experienced the things to make the change. And I am finding now in my recovery, that it's been really healing to, to tell people I have borderline personality disorder, I have PTSD, I have major depressive and general anxiety, and I'm in recovery. And I am living a life that I never thought I'd get to live in spite of those things.
And so I think that we talk a lot about self regulation. And that's really important. But something that changed my life and recovery was this idea of CO regulation and building community. And so I think that those are a couple of things that when you sit down in a room full of people, being just genuine and authentic and trying to find healing together, magic happens, like people heal from being supportive, but they also heal from supporting the others in the group. And it's just, it's unlike anything I've ever experienced. And I think it's best done when paired with, you know, being with an individual clinician and things like that. But I think it's peer support, led by people with experience, who have training, you know, to make sure that they know how to facilitate those sorts of things, I think is really important to the movement of recovery for all individuals.
Well, Amy, thanks for sharing that and for your work here and your participation in this community behavioral health forum that is coming up. Sarah, thanks for joining us here today as well and telling us about efforts being made on the county level and this form itself.
Thank you for having us. Appreciate it.
Yeah, good. Thank you Take care of yourselves and checked in with your loved ones.
Sarah Stalter is the McLean County Assistant Director of Behavioral Health coordination. Amy Jeck is Coordinator of Student Wellness at Heartland Community College. They both joined us today to talk about the issues surrounding student mental health and the sixth annual Community Behavioral Health Forum that will be held in mid October. If you're interested in other issues about health, wellness, or other topics, subscribe your random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
