Mental health can be a sensitive topic to discuss among peers, but at Iowa State there are many resources available for those who need it and want to learn more about their mental health.
“Well you have a student that can come from far away, they’re away from their support system and they’re trusting that the university will take care of your most prized possession — which is your children,” said Tim Denger, police officer and detective for the Iowa State Police Department. “You know I have children, I’m a father of three teenage daughters, so I would want that university and the people that work at the university to be carrying the compassion enough to do whatever is needed for my daughters. As a father, I take that approach.” Iowa State Student Counseling Director Christopher Hanes said college mental health connects with all areas from social to academic life. “Mental health and wellness and academic success are inextricably linked,” Hanes said. “College is a period of growth, transition and challenges and one’s holistic wellness including mental health is important when navigating this experience in successful ways. Providing mental health services supports the academic mission in promoting a successful and healthy learning experience. A significant rate of student dropouts in college are linked to mental health concerns.” Iowa State provides a student health and wellness unit which includes on-campus resources from areas such as counseling to medical services as well as other areas. Student Wellness, Student Counseling Services, Thielen Student Health Center and Recreation Services are part of the unit. “This past year we served 7% of the ISU student population and our utilization has increased 33% over the past five years,” Hanes said. “Nationally, we have seen a 30 percent to 40 percent increase over the past five years. The trends in number of students seeking help is six times the growth in enrollment during the same period of time [according to the] Center for Collegiate Mental Health. Demand for crisis related services continue to increase with students using more crisis intervention services. At SCS we have seen a 146 percent increase in crisis related services over the past five years.” Student Counseling Services is located on the third floor of the Student Services Building with 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. walk-in hours, Monday through Thursday, as well as 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. crisis hours Monday through Friday. Student Counseling Services offers various groups including “Self Love” and “Anxiety Group” as well as workshops such as “Create your own calm.” “[Student Counseling Services] utilizes a stepped care services model that provides brief counseling services to enrolled ISU students,” Hanes said. “ [...] A way of viewing [stepped care services] is as a system that is designed to meet the continuum of mental health needs on campus by providing a tailored support plan for each student to best meet their needs. We meet with students and develop a support plan that considers all these service options to best meet their needs.” The Stepped Care Model is a process which starts with “Self Help” which includes a crisis text line as well as online and app-based programs, Hanes said Student Counseling Services recommends apps such as “Calm,” “Breathe2relax” and Insight Timer. “These apps provide skill development and guided resources to support wellness and coping,” Hanes said. Hanes said Student Counseling Services is “currently exploring” online self-help services and hopes to offer it soon. “We offer a large number of weekly groups designed to promote connection, support and skill development for students to address their needs,” Hanes said. “We also have a new team called the Care management team and they provide intensive case management support services to students when bridging to community for our most at risk clients.” For the most “at risk clients” Iowa State Police Department offers services such as a welfare checks. Kinsey Phillips, the mental health advocate and program coordinator for Iowa State Police Department, said a welfare check is when a family member or friend will call to check-in on someone they believe has a mental health crisis, Phillips or Denger will come to the scene and speak with the person. “What that looks like — the actual welfare check — is if one of us are available or both, we would go and actually go to the residence of that person or wherever they’re at and just make sure they’re okay,” Phillips said. “If they need to go to the hospital, we can transport them to the hospital and take them to the emergency department there. If they don’t need to go to the hospital, we can provide resources or say “we’ll reach out to you tomorrow and make sure you’re doing okay” — whatever that may be.” Phillips said if neither her or Denger are available, an on-duty police officer will respond to the welfare check. Denger said the Iowa State Police Department will try to provide study breaks during midterms and finals week as a way to give students a break from their studies. “What I call is a study break, we’ll just go to the library and just “hey we’re here, we’re not asking for anything, we just want to give you a break” and it’s neat to see the reactions on people and our students and just “Hey, you know what? Keep doing what you’re doing, have some sugar, have some cookies and fight through it,”” Denger said. Denger said he also wants to build the relationship between students and officers. “We want people to be able to trust our officers and know that they’re highly trained, they’re highly skilled and they’re highly compassionate,” Denger said. “[The officers have] broken that stigma that they had and could have had, you know with mental health as well, I know I had to do myself and that’s why I’m so passionate about mental health.” For students who are looking to maintain their mental health, Hanes said he would recommend students to be prepared, healthy and commit to a wellness routine. “We have built a community on campus to support students growth and wellness during their collegiate career,” Hanes said. “ISU is a place where you can embrace life challenges within a compassionate and supportive environment. I recommend students consider three steps to their mental health. One, be prepared and learn the signs of distress and resources/steps you can take to get support. Two, be healthy and be successful at ISU. Commit to a wellness routine and refuel yourself regularly. Three, get connected: form connections with others on campus through formal or informal communities and resources and pursue pathways to get support when needed.” There are many numbers students in need of immediate support can call, they include resources like Ames Police and a national number. Hidden in the prairies at Ada Hayden lake lies a stone circle with four flags marking each cardinal direction. The 40-foot circle is a medicine wheel designed and built in honor of the First Nation People of the Great Plains. Covered by interlocking pavers and sheltered by aspen trees, the wheel overlooks the lake and the prairie. The medicine wheel was constructed and funded by members of the Ames Kiwanis Club in 2006. The club members spent hundreds of hours of volunteered time to construct the medicine wheel. Bill Boon, who served as the master of ceremonies for the Kiwanis Club, said he has seen people well into their 60s working on the wheel.
When the wheel was finished, the Ames Noon, Golden K and Town and Country Kiwanis clubs, native people representing the Lakota Tribe and other nations brought drums, a flute, dancers and a spiritual adviser and healer to dedicate the site, according to an article written by the Ames Tribune. The wheel was meant to represent the prairies in Iowa before the settlers came and as a tribute to the Native Americans. The phrase “The Medicine Wheel is sacred. The Great Spirit caused everything to be round: Sun, Sky, Moon, Earth It is the Circle of Life Inside the circle are: The four directions, The four winds, The four seasons. This Medicine Wheel is in honor of the First Nation People of the Great Plains.” The Medicine Wheel is also known as the Sacred Hoop, according to an article written by the Native Voices, was used for health and healings. It embodies the Four Directions, as well as Father Sky, Mother Earth and Spirit Tree—all of which symbolize dimensions of health and the cycles of life. The physical structure of the wheel is circular and follows the clockwise direction in order to align the forces of nature. The white flag, located on the north side of the circle, represents the winter and the direction of the elders. The color of the flag also represents nature cleansing the land for the new year. The yellow flag, located on the east side of the wheel, represents the season of spring and follows the direction of new beginnings and life. The red flag, located on the south side of the wheel, represents summertime and follows the direction of abundance and plenty, and the medicine of kishki (The Potawatomi Medicine Wheel 2013). Lastly, the black flag, located on the west side of the wheel, represents autumn and follows the direction of sage — used for smudging, where smoke is wafted over a person to rid the body of any negativity. The medicine wheel can serve as a “cool spot” for some hikers around Ada Hayden, but it could also provide an opportunity for the people of Ames to learn about the community of Native Americans who lived before them. In the eyes of the Native Americans, the purpose of the medicine wheel is to create a balance in an imbalanced world filled with disease. So when a person is surrounded by a certain negative force, energy or attitude such as stress, they can get sick. The purpose of the Native American medicine wheel is to deal with the root of any physical problem. This type of map is for someone who is decently familiar with Ames but they would like to find some hidden gems. So the map has very minimal detail and its main focal point are the two gems I would direct people towards.
One of the areas I included is Cafe Diem, next to the martial arts center, and it’s been a spot I’ve visited since I was in middle school. Cafe Diem is located on Main Street and it’s a coffee shop. When you walk under the black overhead, you can see the drink of the month as well as the guests sitting by the window. When you open the door, the atmosphere is mostly dark, the shop lit by Edison bulbs hanging from each booth or table. The shop is filled with students in the booths, laptops and notebooks are out. Some of the patrons are laughing with their friends over a cup of coffee while others are having their business meetings. This is the place where I’ve created small traditions with my best friend, who is currently serving in the Israeli army. As my best friend is from Israel, she moved there with the intention to go to college. In order for her to do that, she had to enroll in the army for at least one to two years. We became regulars at Cafe Diem during our high school years. We would order jamochas, a chocolate frappe with a splash of espresso, and sit in the booth closest to the bar — the perfect spot to watch the baristas and customers. In that booth we’ve exposed our secrets to each other, shared jokes that made us laugh so much it was hard to breathe and worked through the rough patches of our friendship. Once the shop filled up, we would take our drinks and walk down Main Street and across the street to this hidden garden. The garden connected to the four-hour parking lot behind the shops on Main Street and it had a beautiful red and yellow mural. Drinks in hand, sitting on the painted bench, my best friend and I would talk about the future; what would college be like and how would we maintain our friendship with an eight-hour time difference. During this time we would also watch the people walk by, the couples on their first dates to the businessmen and women rushing to their meetings. To some people, this is just a pretty garden with some local art or Cafe Diem is just another coffee shop. For me, these places became a space where my best friend and I had our ups and downs, grew closer and laughed until our cheeks hurt. Photo by Grant Tetmeyer I’m a writer — always have been and always will.
For a lot of people talking came before reading and writing but for me I was shy so I learned how to read before I spoke to my peers. I was born in India in the year 1999 and moved to Iowa in 2000; I didn’t learn English until I entered elementary school. So writing was one of my favorite forms of communication, I didn’t have to stutter or try to translate a word on the spot. As I walked into my high school, I started speaking English as if it were my first language. I abandoned my writing skills in my sophomore year of high school. I started exploring the maths and sciences as it is seen as the “universal language.” I still enjoyed my English classes — I still talk to my AP Literature and Composition (AP Lit) teacher to this day. I liked reading the assigned books but I didn’t like the analysis that followed — I just wanted to write about the facts. (Now, I’m going to break this imaginary wall and talk to you, the reader, directly: if I remember anything from my AP Lit class, this last sentence involves a term called “foreshadowing.”) I remember sitting in class fascinated with the concepts of psychology and I wanted to learn more. By the time high school graduation came around, I was enrolled at Iowa State University majoring in psychology with the intention to go to medical school. Halfway through my first semester, I wanted to drop out of school. I hated every one of my classes, from psychology to biology. I remember failing my third chemistry exam in a row and forced to figure out a new career path — medical school was not for me. So I went back to writing and it healed me a little. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I started by looking at areas that involved writing. I didn’t want to take an English class at the time since it wasn’t the type of writing I was looking for. I decided to take a journalism class since I was an avid news consumer and the career involved writing. I haven’t looked back since. From the frantic calls for last minute sources to the endless all-nighters, the life of a journalist is exhausting and I wouldn't have it any other way. |
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