Thoughtful opinion pieces in the past have disagreed persuasively with the claim that demographics do not matter in the design, delivery, and evaluation of Harvard’sCounseling and Mental Health Services. Diversify CAMHS’s survey is a case in point: It suggests direct interventions CAMHS could roll out to address problems of inordinate attrition among non-white, foreign-born, first-time users of mental health services. Demographic factors such as nativity, ethnicity, and socioeconomic insecurity do contribute to the alarmingly high rates of attrition among first-time users of university-based mental health services. But, as is the case with far too many conversations about mental health, stakeholders have yet to think, talk, and write about mental health services comprehensively. Despite efforts to optimize front-end client flow at CAMHS, much less thought has touched on enhancing back-end flow.
A survey of the history of CAMHS’s back-end procedures displays troubling inconsistencies in its commitment to one of higher education’s long-standing practices: Evaluation. Counseling and Mental Health Services, as its name indicates, is charged to provide services. But if the current design of its service delivery system is any indication, CAMHS has yet to meet the challenge of comprehensiveness of its charge to provide services.
CAMHS’s evaluation procedures leave much to be desired in two respects. First, they do not promptly invite students to reflect upon and assess the quality and effectiveness of the counseling session immediately afterwards. Second, they do not ask students whether demographic factors may have inflected their experience of the counseling session. For the full article click here
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