The COVID-19 pandemic saw a huge uptick in mental health issues as everyone was put under quarantine. Five years later, Central Connecticut State University’s Wellness Center continues to work on improving its ability to support students in need of mental health services and offer better in comparison to previous years.

In a spring 2019 article for Focus Mental Health, Kelly Langevin reported that at the time of writing, students seeking mental health services were seeing wait times of two weeks on average and even up to two months when seeking appointments for counseling. Langevin reported the long wait times were resulting from the Wellness Center’s limited counselors on staff to serve students. The long wait times often made it difficult for students to be able to get the help they needed when they really needed it, leaving some frustrated.

Recently, that trend has changed somewhat on campus. Dr. Michael Russo, Director of Counseling and Student Development at the Wellness Center, said that the Center is doing a good job right now at supporting students with their mental health needs while on campus. He said the demand for mental health services has been leveling off this year in comparison to the increase seen last year. Russo said that currently, the Center is able to get students help in a very timely manner.

“For the spring semester, we’re able to offer an appointment within five days of the student calling to request an appointment,” Russo said. “So if they call us on a Monday, we’re usually able to get them in that same week.”

Russo said in the previous academic year, the Center served about 800 students and scheduled 7,000 service appointments over the course of the year. He said that the Center has been seeing a decrease in the number of students in crisis coming in for services and that it likely is because they are able to get students in quicker than previously and promoting wellness education to students so they know where to go for help. Russo said he plans to continue to work on shortening the appointment time frame to get students in sooner.

“That’s something I’m gonna keep working on even though we’ve made very significant progress on that over the past year in particular,” Russo said. “It’s an issue that I don’t want to lose sight of. I want to just keep focusing on that.”

Dr. Joanne Leon, Associate Professor and Chair for the Social Work Department, said while Central is currently doing well to support student mental health, there is more that can be done to further improve things. She said some potential ideas could be having more funding for school counselors, having regular wellness check-ins, more support groups and safe space on campus, better training for faculty and staff, and holding more awareness campaigns to let students know about Central’s mental health services.

“We need to be more open and remind students that there’s help available on campus for their mental health needs,” Leon said. “We need to communicate that on a regular basis.”

Christa Dutton reported in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education in September 2024 that issues of mental health in college students have been decreasing. A report from the Healthy Minds Survey found that 38 percent of students surveyed reported they had positive mental health, which was an increase from the 32 percent reported in 2022.

Although not many students are not willing to go on the record about how their mental health is being supported on campus, in private conversations, several have said they feel that the Center is able to suit their needs and get them help in a timely manner.

Russo said the Center is currently working on developing a peer education program to better help students. He said the program would be part of the Center’s prevention initiatives and would train students to communicate with others about mental health and the resources available on campus. Russo said that having this program would help the Center staff help students sooner if they’re hearing about mental health services from fellow students.

“We find that the first person that students typically talk to when they’re struggling with mental health are actually their peers,” Russo said. “It’s not professionals, it’s not their family, it’s typically their peers. So we’re thinking if we can develop a program on campus that addresses that issue from a peer perspective, we can be very effective in helping students identify sooner when they may need support and get in for help quicker and the outcomes will be better.”