“At Williams and Trinity, students from 2014-15 waited at most two days to get non-emergency mental health counseling,” reads a petition circulated earlier this week. “At Amherst, they waited a day and a half. At Bowdoin and Connecticut College, they had no wait. At Wesleyan, they waited three weeks.”
Last summer, University Director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Dr. Jennifer D’Andrea announced that Advanced Practicing Nurse Practitioner (APRN) Katina Varzos had left to pursue a full-time employment opportunity. Dr. D’Andrea indicated that although no prescriptions would be issued through CAPS, students could schedule consultation appointments with their clinicians to locate a prescriber in the community.
In response, University students, led by a group that includes Paige Hutton ’18, Nat Warner ’17, Aliya Shecter ’20, and WSA Student Life Committee Chair Lizzie Shackney ’17, have launched a “Wes Needs CAPS” petition and photo campaign. The petition and corresponding Facebook event details the obstacles students face without an APRN available. It also argues that the University is generally less responsive to the non-emergency mental health needs of the student body compared with its peer institutions. In addition to increasing the CAPS budget for the first time in six years, the petition calls for the hiring of two new full-time psychologists and the promotion of half-time therapists to full-time positions. For the full article click here
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