With the winter season approaching, seasonal depression and mental health issues are increasing concerns for college students.
According to administration assistant Terri Jones, Otterbein University's counseling center, which offers free, on-campus counseling to students, hit its highest number of individual appointments during November of last year.
Research collected by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, indicates suicide rates have increased by more than 30 percent in half of the U.S. since 1999. In Ohio, suicide rates have increased by 36 percent.
Otterbein University offers its students multiple ways to help address these issues, including the counseling center and the Women's, Gender and Sexuality resource center.
Despite these efforts, Steven Schroeck, a senior psychology major, said students will typically get help from their peers first. This was his primary motivation behind creating Otterbein's chapter of Active Minds.
Active Minds is a national, non-profit student organization that holds meetings focused on educating people about mental health awareness. It first started at Otterbein last spring.
Schroeck, who is the president of Otterbein's Active Minds chapter, said, “I wanted to try to create something that is kind of like a middle ground for students to direct them to resources and get them the best help."
He encourages students struggling with mental health issues to reach out.
“It’s important that we take notice of it and try to start a conversation around it,” said Schroeck. “We need to not only de-stigmatize it, but make sure we create a safe environment and safe place for people to talk about things, so hopefully, it doesn’t come to that point for them.”
The National Suicide Prevention lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.
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