Whether they’re showing a stressed-out teen how to handle anxiety over a failing class or they’re meeting with the college’s new support group for gay students, the staff of Elgin Community College’s new Student Wellness Services department say they try to take a holistic approach.
“It’s not just about one area of life,” one of the college’s two new “wellness professionals,” Angela Ogburn, said in a recent report to the ECC Board of Trustees about their first six months of work. “You might have your finances completely under control but the whole social thing is not working out, or your home situation is not working.”
Almost a whole school year has passed now since the jobs of the college’s four full-time and four part-time “counselors” were eliminated. Their duties were split between nine full-time and three part-time “academic advisers” plus the two new full-time wellness professionals, who began working last November to deal with students’ personal problems.
The other wellness professional, Vincent Cascio, said he and Ogburn work on the idea that here are eight dimensions to anyone’s wellness — not just physical healthiness but also spiritual, social, environmental, emotional, financial, intellectual and occupational/academic.
At their duty’s most extreme, Cascio said, the duo provide “crisis intervention” during daytime and early-evening hours for students who are having suicidal or homicidal thoughts, have been raped or assaulted, are hearing voices, have suffered a death in the family, etc. The two have arranged their hours so that one of them is available to talk to anyone who drops in at almost all times, they added. In those first six months 127 students have “come through the front door saying, ‘I’d like to talk to somebody,'” Ogburn said. Nine faculty members also have come in, asking for advice about how to help some specific student deal with personal problems.
But most of their effort, Cascio said, is spent reaching out to students with seminars, support groups and workshops that address all eight of those aspects of wellness. They also publish a monthly magazine called “Health 101,” with articles about wellness and announcements of wellness activities on the campus.
“We take a very proactive approach,” Ogburn said. “When people hear the word ‘counselor,’ they think of something that’s reactive. We prefer to go after a problem before it becomes big.”
For example, she said, it doesn’t work very well for a student to come in a week before he’s about to flunk a class. he would be much better off coming in at the beginning of the semester when perhaps he has noticed that he’s having problems motivating himself.
The professionals said they have set up one support group, with about a dozen students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. “One student in the group said that ‘this is the most normal and accepted I’ve felt in my life,'” Cascio said.
When 10 or more students seem to want a support group on another topic, those will be formed, the professionals said.
The duo also have offered five workshops to show students how to manage stress or quit smoking, with 27 total students involved. And they have attracted 184 students to such events as a Black History Month Wellness Fair, a stress management and meditation seminar, a “Healthy Relations” seminar on Valentine’s Day, and Wellness Wednesdays, in which they hang out in the Jobe Lounge on the first and third Wednesdays of each month.
“We’re looking for opportunities to reach out to students who are not reaching out to us yet,” Ogburn said.
“Your biggest challenge is getting people to admit they need some kind of help,” said board member Art Sauceda.
“There are probably a lot of adults who don’t realize there are eight dimensions to wellness,” said board member John Duffy.
ECC President David Sam, who pushed for the counseling duties to be divided, told the two staffers he is “very proud of what you have done” in that first half year.
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For more information about ECC Wellness, call 847-214-7390, email [email protected], or visit Room B120 on the college’s main campus.