educators need to know

This assessment allowed me to bring my knowledge to the surface and show me what I knew before entering the course. It reacclimated my understanding of mental health and what this area of study is largely based on Trauma’s. I tried not to look anything up in advance and answered all questions as authentically as possible. In doing so I showed myself that I did not have as large of an insight as I had initially thought. I try to manage my assessment of how to respond to trauma in higher education as delicately as possible as I think it’s only fitting to be empathetic. I base my empathy around being trained to react sympathetically in a customer service-type environment meant to cater to the person on the opposing end. So this gave me a look at my perception from a counseling perspective which is something I’ve not had to encounter before.

The Psychological first aid assignment provided insights into how to be able to provide first aid to those experiencing a high level of distress. This series of modules provides different areas that I can use in the future in almost every situation. The skills acquired in this course serve as a guide for me to use in almost any context of my life and can help better my reactions to highly distressed individuals in their time of crisis.

This assignment provided me with the ability to put myself in the shoes of a future counselor. This assignment was challenging in the sense that it was difficult for me to pick a scenario to break down. I found myself reading over them over and over again trying to decide at first. I went with the scenario closest to the work I eventually hope to see myself in which is working with adults in college who may be in distress. I was able to see myself having to console the counselee and breaking down the components that I thought should be addressed. It was difficult but having it in an assignment versus in a one-on-one interaction will be different, but this allowed me to review the content and break down the problem over a series of days which I won't have the ability to do in the future. This assignment was a way to pull together all the resources I've collected over the course and see how I can best apply and implement the knowledge and skills. 

I did find this assignment challenging as group assignments in distance learning can be challenging.  This showed me more about myself and how I tend to handle situations with no direction or control. I felt I needed to take the initiative and provide guidance on how to best split the group work. I was intrigued by the content around dating violence and found myself perplexed about the number of resources and how to best implement them for our group assignment since there is no one way to handle dating violence. This topic area has no one-size-fits-all all solution so it was looking at the resources and manipulating them to provide knowledge and guidance on how to assess situations and provide assistance to those in dangerous situations.

Hello all,

My name is Gabriella Tapia. I prefer to go by Gabby and my pronouns are She/Her. I am currently in my first semester at ASU and am participating in the Mental Health and Counseling Wellness MA program. Upon completion I hope to expand my knowledge of student engagement through mental health counseling or case management with the Student Advocacy Center at the Alamo Colleges where I am currently employed. Currently I am employed as an Academic Advisor in San Antonio Texas for the Alamo College. I look forward to how I can utilize newfound skills to explore other areas primarily working with young adults who are entering college and struggle with retention due to circumstances beyond their control outside of the classroom.

One goal I have in this course is to strengthen my knowledge and understanding within the area of Mental health. I hope to deepen my understanding of how to better handle trauma and learn more ways to manage my own mental health and that of others.  I struggled on my own without therapy, medication or reaching out for any type of help. As a result, this impacted how long my undergraduate degree took for me to obtain, prevented me from seeking help for myself and took control of many aspects of my life. That's why what I do now advising students, paired with what this program, will teach me will help me better serve my students and our community.

The statistic which surprised me most was the statistic that “1 in 5 Americans experience a mental illness in a given year.” I was expecting this statistic to be higher based on the interactions I have working with adult students and just interacting with others in my own life who are open about their struggle with mental health. I expected this statistic to be higher, somewhere closer to 3 in 5 Americans so this statistic seemed to me to be lower than what I was anticipating.

In my previous role as an administrative assistant at the institution I work at there was an interaction I had with a faculty member at the campus I work at. The instructor was in the middle of a course lecture and there was a student who was autistic who began to yell and became very agitated. The instructor immediately began to panic and sent another student over to our office housed next to the designated police office on our campus asking for immediate assistance with this student from anybody who might be able to better calm the student down. The student was not exerting aggressive behavior but rather visibly panicked and disrupted the lecture and became nonverbal and stunned with shock groaning and unable to speak clearly. We had an on-campus officer come and help calm the student down and helped them call a relative who later came and picked the student up. The instructor explained that sometimes an aid or the student's mother would come to class with them and help keep the student attentive in class.

Had the instructor or myself been better equipped on how to assist an individual who was experiencing an episode where they become non verbal. The aid of a campus police officer may not have been necessary, and there could be future instances where the police officer’s presence may have agitated the situation to a negative effect.  I strive to better my reactions to high stress situations for those who cannot or find difficulty in advocating for themselves.

As I took the quizzes, I recognized that I will need to continue to familiarize myself with mental health statistics, one of the quizzes I did really poorly on was provided by Channel Kindness and the quizzes from Destigmatizing and the CDC I did very well with. Overall, I quickly realized how prevalent mental health can begin to develop in adolescents and young adults continue to affect someone's overall health over time and will progress with age.

I hope that with participation in this program that I can develop more empathy and understanding for the students I currently advise academically who are currently struggling with their mental health and how it impacts their ability to participate in classes. I hope to continue to broaden my understanding for crisis and trauma outside of my current academic setting and utilize those skills to assist any adult who wish to remain persistent in reaching their goals providing them skills to better manage their overall mental health and utilize resources available to them.

I found an ebook “Improving learning and mental health in the college classroom”  talking about the correlation between stress and anxiety and how it impairs the brain from critical thinking in highly stressful situations. The text also discussed how there can be a correlation between math anxiety and how it impairs an individual's cognitive resources thus causing a decline in problem solving for the equations at hand. Which is something that I and many of the students I advise have trouble with. These types of stress management and recognition for overall mental health in higher education is no new subject matter. However, combating these academic barriers are a small part of what I hope to better help students overcome in my current and future role.

References

Robert Eaton, Steven V. Hunsaker, & Bonnie Moon. (2023). Improving Learning and Mental Health in the College Classroom. West Virginia University Press.

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COLLAPSE

Discussion Post 1

Trauma in a Community College Advising Setting and my future as a wellness counselor in Higher education.

As Academic Advisors and Educators, we engage with students from all phases of life, especially adult learners this widens the scope of interaction. Some students may be recent high school graduates or those exiting adolescence, others could be single parents returning to school to learn a new trade, or those seeking advanced forms of higher education. We are responsible for several tasks outside of course selections or recommendations. We provide Academic Advising following violations of GPA, and general support of our students throughout their academic journey and aiding in locating resources that will assist them in achieving their version of success. I will elaborate on this throughout my post. 

Although they sound vague in correlation with trauma, depending on a student's background it can be an intersection leading into previously traumatic periods in a student's life and that of our own. That is why I do agree that all Health & Wellness and even Educational Professionals (both faculty and staff) regularly engage with methods and best practices on how to identify trauma and when to reach out on a student’s behalf. Our society changes so rapidly that remaining informed on how practices have changed over time, would be necessary to the role of all aspects of health. Especially how trauma will impact an individual over time, signs to look for, and how to safely provide aid to those currently suffering in any situation. 

For College Faculty and especially staff that can mean remaining empathetic, and professional in the interpretation of student struggles. In both my current and future role, I hope to engage with students who need mental health counseling, and currently provide them the resources to remain motivated to continue pushing forward.  This allows me to have a direct impact on helping to reduce the risk of dropping out of college and instead help students overcome disparities and barriers to a better future. Pierre used similar practices and found the following 

“From a multicultural and social justice framework, having a person-centered and culturally sensitive approach is a way to better support students. Ultimately, counseling can help adult education students move beyond their barriers to achieve their adult education and transition goals.”

( Pierre, M. 2022 p. 61)

As I reviewed  ACEs I saw it as a way to provide insights for individuals like myself who hope to pursue counseling or even those looking for material to educate themselves on remaining trauma-informed to utilize in any professional role. Especially when interacting with all students who are still susceptible to living within acute trauma. We have to remember that we are all humans living for the first time and we are all learning how to live with the trauma we have witnessed and encompassed.

 Certain types of emotional abuse or neglect have proven to influence the development of children under 18. Children under 18 are still at a crucial age where they should inhabit a healthy and safe environment that promotes growth and wellbeing that enhances development. When abuse and  trauma intersect it  acts as a barrier to developing healthy ways of coping or managing stress and relationships.  Utilizing resources like ACEs provides us opportunities to understand the impact of trauma and how it will affect future generations and coping with trauma or how it can continue to manifest in adulthood and how that can impact their time in college. I did take the ACES questions, and rather than share my score it opened my eyes to how fortunate I was to have the life provided by my family. No childhood is ever perfect, but my score was so low that it put into perspective how different of life would have been possible.So I do think it is an important representation of all people who can digest trauma. Additionally in a college setting we also still encounter students under 18 who have graduated early, obtained Duel Crdeit, or Advanced placement in High School level courses. So even in institutions of higher education we still engage with what is considered a child.

When reviewing the academic files of a student following a decline in GPA we have to discuss with the student what may have caused them to fail out of school or end up on any type of academic penalty. Students are typically forthcoming with accountability and previous misconduct related to academic decline. However, sometimes that means having to re-live painful traumatic memories on the student's end.  Students have been open about abusive relationships where they suffered from emotional and physical domestic abuse. Another student I will refer to as “ Sally” had an incredibly traumatic year. Sally spoke about her mother having had a stroke, her mother losing her job and health insurance, loss of access to medical care, almost losing their home, and Sally had to begin working full-time while attending college at the same time also full time. Sally progressively stopped going to class because the fear of homelessness in her family home outweighed attending class. So Sally's GPA suffered as she did not know how to process so many things at once, was afraid to ask for help in her classes had difficulty creating open forms of communication with her instructor, and simply did the best she could from day to day hoping she did not loose her mother. 

 I’ve spoken with countless students who struggle with their current mental health and are unsure of how to ask for help. I’ve spoken with students here on a student visa visiting from another country, alone and secluded from their families and home countries, in a new place trying to learn what they can before having to return to their home country in hopes of providing for their families. I have encountered many students who are on the brink of tears because they are either afraid of becoming homeless, failing classes, pursuing an area of study they hate, recovering from acute traumas, or grieving the loss of loved ones. Some students are estranged from their families due to differences in views or from being disowned for their way of life. 

Many of my colleagues, myself included are not currently in roles directly related to counseling, however, will still suffer from Organizational Trauma and experience Burnout as a direct result of the copious number of students that we engage with regularly who are looking to us educational professionals for help. Although we approach all students with a human-centered approach and do what we can to provide them aid. Our primary training and preparation in our roles are not largely focused on the trauma at all, not in the way the preparation of the role of counselors is largely emphasized, which is why we are so susceptible to those forms of trauma. Again this is why familiarization of resources like ACEs can be so impactful even for our peers.

When we provide support to adult learners the opportunity to redefine the pathway to success in their career. Students can then utilize their newfound knowledge and continue to build upon them and continue to reach their full potential. Then we can provide our students with the confidence they need to enter the workforce, implement their new skills or trades, and find happiness as they continue to achieve their goals.

Refrences

Pierre, M., Park, C., Morikawa, L., & Cortez, M. L. (2022). Counseling: A Trauma-Informed and Culturally Sensitive Approach in Adult Education. COABE Journal: The Resource for Adult Education, 11(1), 53–63

In this effort, the Alamo Colleges District has initiated AlamoCARES, a prevention, education and support program regarding dating violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. 

It is our sincere hope that AlamoCARES will empower you to make well-informed decisions about life issues that affect your college years and beyond.

Within the AlamoCARES site,  you will find information on rights granted by Title IX and resources to help educate and assist you when dealing with harassment and sexual violence. Events, training, and opportunities for bringing awareness to difficult issues and creating discussion opportunities with students are available on a regular basis.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Student Information Release Policy / Confidentiality of Records

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.

The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) permits release of Directory Information without a student’s consent unless a student makes a written request to withhold the information.   Students may request their information not be released by completing the Request for Nondisclosure Form and submitting it to the Admissions and Records team.

The Alamo Colleges District designates student Directory Information as:

1. Name

2. Academic plan

3. Enrollment status

4. Dates of attendance

5. Previous education agencies/institutions attended

6. Degrees received

7. Awards received

• Social Security numbers are not Directory Information  

8. The Alamo Colleges District must release students’ addresses and telephone numbers to military recruiters.