Mission
The mission of Counseling Services (CS) at UA Little Rock is to empower students to overcome barriers to their academic success by:
- Providing counseling services for university students and
- Promoting a culture of community by fostering an atmosphere of caring.
Summary Narrative
1) Enhance recruitment and retention efforts to increase enrollment
- Streamlined the CARE Team referral process to make CS more easily accessible.
- Provided an internship site to UA Little Rock students in the Master of Social Work and Rehab Counseling programs.
- Created an orientation video to raise awareness of our services for incoming students.
2) Strengthen student-friendly operations and customer service
- Created a brochure to promote CS.
- Created a handbook for customer-facing staff that outlines policies regarding appropriate customer service, assisting and supporting students in distress, handling confidential health information, and referring students on and off campus.
- Increased online awareness of the department by expanding its social media presence.
3) Improve diversity and inclusion efforts to provide a safe and inclusive environment for students
- Staff members served on the Chancellor’s Diversity Council.
- Staff members served on the Racial Barriers Committee.
- New staff members completed Safe Zone training, bringing the total number of trained employees to 100%.
- Created social media posts for Pride Month, Black History Month, Juneteenth, Mental Health Awareness Month, Women’s History Month, and Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.
4) Align financial and human resources to operate more effectively and efficiently
- Alumni and Development – 100% of CS staff donated to the Campus Campaign, scholarships, or both.
- Raised funds for programming efforts to save money for the campus. Stakeholders within the community donated resources for MythBusters: Sex Edition and Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk.
- Clinical Internship Placement Site – During the academic year, CS provided clinical training and opportunities to interns from the School of Social Work and Rehabilitation Counseling programs. Additionally, Carolyn Wray provided intern supervision and consultation with California Southern University. These interns provided 819 counseling sessions for UA Little Rock students this academic year. To date, CS has hosted 49 clinical interns since the fall of 2009.
5) Promote student development, engagement, and leadership
- Provided volunteer opportunities for students at the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk.
- Created a social media and marketing committee to create content for Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to promote students’ mental and physical wellness.
- Created a departmental TikTok account.
- Promoted social media presence, increasing student engagement on social media to 600 followers on Instagram, 813 on Facebook, and 10 on TikTok.
- Increased our on-campus outreach by creating a satellite office at Campus Living.
6) Other
Committees:
- Racial Barrier Committee
- Gary Lee Smith Grant with MidSouth (Suicide Prevention Committee)
- Behavioral Intervention Team
- Orientation Committee
- CARE Team
- Campus Campaign Steering Committee
- Data Research Committee Meeting
- Grievance Committee
- SSS Coordinator Hiring Committee
- Arkansas Collegiate Network
- Health Services Search Committee
- Student Success Search Committee
Leadership:
- Student Affairs Leadership Academy
- Assadi completed Doctoral Degree
Professional Development:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) training
- Telehealth training
- MidSouth Conference
- Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) inservice training
- Staff members completed individual training in the following areas: social media marketing, Canva, Mental Health First Aid, grief, trauma, PTSD, and psychopharmacology
At A Glance
- 3,276 individual clinical appointments
- 113 Triage/Students in distress
- 99 CARE team referrals
- 4030 Emails
- 605 Instagram Followers
- 813 Facebook Followers
- 219 TAO users
Assessment 1
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Student learning – Knowledge acquisition / construction / integration and application
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Prepare students for success
Activity or experience being assessed
Exit Interviews with interns
Assessment artifacts
Exit Interviews with interns
Time period assessment was done
After they graduate
Results
Highlights from Intern Exit Interviews
Exit Interview Question
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your internship experience?
Intern 1 Answer: “8, The only thing I would count off on was the availability of having the same place to meet with students each time they were seen. The student’s feedback was often negative, and stated they were unhappy with having to change offices each time they were seen, and they felt unsettled because of it.”
Intern 2 Answer: “10, I thought it was excellent.”
Intern 3 Answer: “10, I would give it a higher number if I could.”
Exit Interview Question
Would you recommend this internship to a fellow student? Any qualifications?
Intern 1 Answer: N/A
Intern 2 Answer: Yes
Intern 3 Answer: “Absolutely!” “It was as close as it possibly could be to what I wanted to do, and learn. For me, it was as perfect an internship as possible.”
Exit Interview Question
What suggestions do you have, if any, for improving this internship program?
Intern 1 Answer: “I don’t have anything that I can think of. I knew that if needed, I could reach out for help. I never felt like I was left to my own recognizance. I felt it was a really good, interactive relationship between staff, and the other interns.” I would rate this a program a (10).
Intern 2 Answer: She would have liked a more thorough and deliberate training on Medicat; a more consistent office space, and enough lap-tops and Medicat access available for all the interns. She also felt it would have helped to have paid parking access, with one of the reasons concerning safety.
Intern 3 Answer: She would have liked better training on Medicat, terminating clients, and the DSM-5; and more structured training at the outset on treatment planning.
Continuous improvement process
Counseling Services will do summer training before the semester begins to get interns settled before they come to campus. This will be far more efficient than how it has been done in the past.
WHEN: August 2023
Stateholder involvement / Communication plan
Interns and CS staff
Assessment 2
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational assessment
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Prepare students for success
Activity or experience being assessed
Experience as an intern at UA Little Rock Counseling Services
Assessment artifacts
Interview (Semi-structured)
Time period assessment was done
3-6 months after intern graduated
Results
During the Exit Interviews, all of the interns provided glowing feedback on their internship experiences. They all stated that their internship experience at CS has increased their confidence in their clinical skills and that they feel more prepared to go out into the field as a result of their internship.
Continuous improvement process
- Summer Training
- Internship Handbook
- DSM V in-service
- Licensure Exam assistance
- Student in Distress Training and Guidebook
WHEN: August 2023
Stateholder involvement / Communication plan
Interns and CS Staff
Assessment 3
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational assessment
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Strengthen and support the human resources and infrastructure necessary to fulfill UA Little Rock’s mission.
Activity or experience being assessed
Posting mental health-related content to social media and other wellness initiatives
Assessment artifacts
Survey sent out on social media and website
Data collected during tabling events
Time period assessment was done
Throughout 2021-2022
Results
These were the mental health topics that students and staff wanted to learn more about:
- Burn out
- Stress management
- Healthy relationships
- Emotional regulation
- Grief
Continuous improvement process
Counseling Services took feedback into consideration and provided much of the requested content.
WHEN: FY22-Throughout the year, FY2023-Throughout 2022 and 2023
Stateholder involvement / Communication plan
Counseling Services will provide the content that was requested.
