Mental Health Initiatives

The health and wellbeing of our students is a top priority at Georgia Southern.  After all, healthy students are successful students!  We champion programs and initiatives to support students’ mental health. In a collaborative effort, the Division of Student Affairs- the Counseling Center, Student Wellness and Health Promotion, and Health Services- strives to support the physical and mental health needs of those within our campus community through various resources and services. 

Remember, Health Services is available for all your physical health concerns and that Student Wellness & Health Promotion can help you identify positive behaviors and coping strategies related to a healthy lifestyle.

For all your mental health needs, our Counseling Center is available for students at Armstrong, Liberty, and Statesboro campuses. The Counseling Center is your resource for individual therapy, same-day sessions, after-hours crisis response, and drop-in workshops.

We hope these materials help you know more about local and national resources along with steps you can take to assist a student or colleague. You are vitally important in identifying and helping individuals in distress or those at risk for suicide. You strengthen our community by creating a network of support. It’s Our House. It’s Our People. It’s Our Purpose. It takes Our Action.

How We’re Improving

The University System of Georgia (USG) has launched a comprehensive plan to significantly expand student mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic. While USG students have proven to be remarkably resilient during the pandemic, the need for additional on-campus mental health resources has been heightened by the unprecedented challenges students face right now. The funding will primarily expand USG clinical resources to ensure every student has access to telephonic psychiatric care and clinical counseling services.

Expanded services will include a partnership with Christie Campus Health with the following:

• An additional mental health support line for another counseling option with off-campus counselors at no additional cost to you for five sessions.
• Expanded psychiatric appointments after referral from Health Services or the Counseling Center.
• Increased online tools to promote health and wellbeing exclusively for students.
• Coordinated local and national mental health resources for students in one place

Additional funds will be set aside to create a USG Mental Health Consortium, which will develop a long-term service model for USG’s 26 institutions.

As part of the Mental Health Initiative by the University System of Georgia, the Helping Eagles Recognize Distress and Offer Support was created by a collaborative effort involving the Counseling Center, Athletics, Human Resources, Office of the Dean of Students, Office of Equal Opportunity & Title IX, Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Office of Student Wellness & Health Promotion, University Communications and Marketing, University Housing, and University Police.

USG QPR Training

The University System of Georgia is beginning to offer QPR Training to faculty, staff, and students! QPR stands for Question, Persuade and Refer — steps that can help save a life from suicide. QPR Training helps individuals recognize the signs of suicide crisis, and how to properly help.

Below is a link to the registration page, which provides more information about QPR Training and a list of available training dates. USG will continue to add dates throughout the summer and early fall.  

USG QPR Training Registration: https://www.cvent.com/d/rjqc1v.

Additional QPR Trainings are being offered by the Georgia Southern Counseling Center. Visit their QPR Training Services page for dates, times, and other information.

Counseling Center

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic response, the Counseling Center is offering telemental health services via Zoom. This means that students have a wider range of counselors, groups, and workshops to choose from than they would typically (since campus of attendance is irrelevant to telemental health services.) Services provided through telemental health by the Counseling Center include:

• intakes
• individual and relational therapy
• same-day solution sessions
• after-hour crisis response
• drop-in workshops

Outreach presentations may be offered in-person or virtually based on the number of participants, venue size, and the topic. We have several on-demand outreach and workshop presentations that can be viewed without even leaving your residence.

Student Wellness & Health Promotion

Student Wellness & Health Promotion helps students identify positive behaviors and coping strategies related to emotional wellbeing, physical wellbeing, interpersonal violence, and more. Through interacting with our office, programs and peer educators, we feel students will be able to learn life-long strategies for living a healthy lifestyle. The mission of the Office of Student Wellness & Health Promotion is to foster a culture of wellness that champions an environment focused on the whole person, whole educational experience, and whole institution resulting in shared responsibility for the entire campus.

Health Services

Health Services offers treatment for mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, ADD/ADHD, etc. in our primary care clinic. These visits can be scheduled through our on-line system (Eagle OSH). Psychiatric services are also available to students once a student has been evaluated and referred to our psychiatrist by either a medical provider in our primary care clinic or a Georgia Southern Counseling Center psychologist/licensed counselor.

JED Foundation Campus Partnership

The aim of JED Campus is to ensure that schools have comprehensive systems in place in order to prioritize student mental health and create positive systemic change in the campus community. A partnership with The Jed Foundation (JED) to help create a long-term strategic plan while implementing immediate actions and programs to support student mental health on campus. JED provides a comprehensive public health approach in promoting emotional well-being and preventing suicide and serious substance abuse.

Last updated: 4/8/2022