Students at the University of Guelph have a new option available this year when it comes to mental health crisis support.
The University of Guelph and The Co-operators have teamed up with Kids Help Phone to provide a crisis text line.
Students simply text “UofG” to 686868 and they will be immediately connected to a trained support staff at Kids Help Phone.
It’s a natural progression of the assistance already available to students that sees support available by phoning a crisis line.
It's free, available 24/7 and is already up and running. An on-campus marketing and information effort will begin shortly.
“It’s another avenue for students to seek help if they need to,” said Alison Burnett, Director of Student Wellness at the University of Guelph.
“We don’t currently have text help. We have a variety of different services on campus that students can access as well as some online offerings, but not for text,” Burnett said.
She said it offers an option for students who might not feel comfortable verbally communicating with a crisis worker but also a way they can get help discreetly if they are in a place where they don’t feel comfortable talking out loud, such as a busy room.
“It just gives them another way for them to reach out for help in a way they might find more comfortable,” Burnett said.
It is hoped the pilot project will become permanent.
Kids Help Phone research shows that 42 per cent of youth prefer to write rather than speak about their problems and 71 per cent of youth welcome a texting option when discussing their problems.
Guelph-based Co-operators has a long history of working with Kids Help Phone and when they heard about a new pilot project for university and college campuses, they asked if the U of G could be considered.
“About a year ago we started working with Kids Help Phone because we were understanding that mental health was becoming a key issue on campuses,” said Barb Turley-McIntyre, vice president, sustainability and citizenship at The Co-operators.
“At that point we knew we were going to be a funding partner, a founding partner, for the Crisis Text Line they were launching and what we asked was if we could have it piloted on a Canadian campus.”
The Co-operators has donated $400,000 over the next two years help with the Crisis Text Line program nationally and is involved in helping market the program on campus.
Turley-McIntyre said The Co-operators likes to put the issue at the centre of the focus and be one of the partners around the table dealing with it, helping facilitate that combined effort when possible.
“It’s not just a Co-operators project,” she said.
“We hear that students need more support for mental health resiliency and we felt very comfortable jumping into a partnership with Kids Help Phone and the University of Guelph.”
