OATdb Archive

2012 - 2013

Counseling Services

Goal
Foster The Development Of An Inclusive Community
Use values of diversity and inclusiveness to guide delivery of services to the student population.

Objective
Diversity/Inclusiveness
The population of students served will reflect the diversity of the SHSU student body to demonstrate the inclusiveness of the agency, and the importance of providing services to underserved and/or marginalized populations.

KPI
Racial/Ethnic Demographics
Data reflecting racial/ethnic demographics of Counseling Center clients to be compared with the general student population, showing no more than a 5% difference between the two.

Result
Racial/Ethnic Demographic Findings
Demographic data was gathered from the Standardized Data Set, which functions as the Counseling Center's general demographic information form, along with information obtained from SHSU Institutional Effectiveness. A comparison of the available data shows that Counseling Center utilization rates for all ethnicities fell within the specified range.

Action
Diversity Awareness
Because delivering services to under-represented populations is an important part of our work (as well as ethically mandated) it continues to be critical to assess this aspect of our functioning. Having said that, because we have continued to meet this milestone for the past few assessment cycles, future diversity related assessment questions will look at specific aspects of service delivery and utility from a perspective of diversity.

Objective
Diversity Training
The Counseling Center will develop a Diversity Institute designed to educate students on issues related to individual differences and community.

KPI
Diversity Institute Pre/Post Test
A brief assessment of topics covered to be administered prior to the institute and upon its completion, showing an increase of 60% between administrations.

Result
Diversity Institute Hiatus
During FY13, the Counseling Center ended up being down 2 full time psychologist  positions, and 1 post-doctoral resident position. Because of this and hightened visibilty related to the marketing of the Student Health and Counseling Center referendum, the Counseling Center operated with a substantial wait-list for the majority of the year. As a result, all non-critical programs were temporarily suspended in order to divert clincial resources to direct service provision. The Diversity Institue was one of these programs.

Action
Diversity Institute Discussion
The future of the Diversity Institue will be discussed during a staff retreat at the start of FY14.

Goal
Foster Professional And Personal Development Of Staff...
Foster professional and personal development of staff in order to further address the ever-changing demographics of higher education.

Objective
QPR Program Effectiveness
Implement the QPR suicide response program on campus and determine its effectiveness for the SHSU community.

Indicator
Gatekeeper Training Assessment
Data obtained from a brief assessment of information from the presentation administered in a pre-test/post-test format along with a 3-item self assessment.

Criterion
Pre-Test/Post-Test Change
Particiapants will demonstrate a 60% increase on the content based portion of their assessments between administrations. 80% of participants will score in the "Agree" or "Strongly Agree" categories on the self-assessment portion of their assessments.

Finding
Gatekeeper Training Results
Analysis of pre/post test results revealed some interesting findings. First, the audience that attended QPR training was generally knowledgable about the topic of suicide. As a result, the criterion thereshold related to the content based questions was rendered invalid. Despite this, increases in knowledge were evidenced.

All self-reflection based items achieved the criterion threshold of 80% scoring within the "Agree/Strongly Agree" categories. After completing the training, approximately 85% of participants said they felt comfortable with the topic of suicide (a 40% increase from the pre-test) and 90% indicated that they were likely to talk with someone about suicidal thoughts/feelings (a 30% increase from the pre-test).

Action
QPR Marketing
Based on these results it seems that QPR is a useful program for teaching suicide response skills to lay people. Given that so many individuals came into the training with some base knowledge about suicide and its causes, it seems likely that many of the individuals who took the training were already intersted in/connected to the topic. We will continue to offer the program, and efforts to reach out to individuals who may have less baseline knowldge of the subject matter will be made.


Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement During FY13, the Counseling Center ended up being down 2 full time psychologist  positions, and 1 post-doctoral resident position. Because of this, coupled with hightened visibilty related to the marketing of the Student Health and Counseling Center referendum, the Counseling Center operated with a substantial wait-list for the majority of the year. This situation created the need for us to refocus or energy on the provision of direct clincal services, at the temporary cost of several non-critical programs and initiatives. As a result, all of the efforts that had been identified as part of our Plan for Continuous Improvement were sidelined and will be incorporated into future assessment projects.

Despite this, we took the opportunity to review our policy and procedure manual, along with other resources related to standards of practice, to reflect on our operations at times of peak need. This has led to some reworking of overall processes with an eye towards developing a more robust triage system as additinoal clinical resources become available.

Plan for continuous improvement Our plan for improvement for FY13 was influenced as much by some of the challenges faced by the Counseling Center during the year as it was by our actual assessment results. This was most evident in regards to to the Diversity Institute, which had to be sidelined in order to free up needed clinical resources for the delivery of direct services. We have, however, been rethinking our approach to outreach initiatives and programming, and are working towards the deveopment of a new model. Our goal is to be able to continue providing this kind of service even when we are at our busiest.

In regards to QPR training, the Counseling Center will be partnering with other programs on campus in order to pull in individuals who could benefit from the training but have less of a background in this area. Identified targets include the PACE Center and Staff Council. Although it will not likely be included in a future OATDB entry, we will track the outcome of these trainings to determine if our outreach efforts were successful.