By Raylee Foster | Staff Writer
The pandemic inspired Baylor’s Counseling Center to add telehealth services with the goal of helping more students regardless of what’s going on in the world.
Dean of Student Health and Wellness Jim Marsh said in the 2018-19 academic year, the Counseling Center saw 2,400 students. This number declined during the pandemic and since, the center worked toward an efficient and realistic solution to help students despite social distancing and health precautions.
“Coming out of COVID-19 a couple of things happened. One thing is we started being able to see students in person,” Marsh said. “We also added a third party telehealth provider called Academic Live Care, in addition to the brick and mortar services that we have on campus. It was really designed to enhance the services that we provide.”
Marsh said with the implementation of Academic Live Care, the Counseling Center was able to help nearly 1,000 students in each of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 academic years. He said this also allows the center to help students working with different schedules or wanting specific counselor criteria including race, gender, age or experience.
“The benefit of telehealth is we’re only open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and so if a student wants an evening appointment, weekend appointment [or] they want to meet with someone when the university is closed, they have access here,” Marsh said. “There’s just more flexibility. Within the system, there’s 3,400 therapists available in Texas.”
Randal Boldt, senior assistant director of counseling, said coming out of the pandemic, the Counseling Center is addressing mental health concerns that have always been present, but at a greater intensity.
“We’re seeing the same types of concerns being brought in, but there’s a sense that maybe the severity of those needs have increased,” Boldt said. “Maybe a student that has had an underlying concern and you add to it their experience in the pandemic, it exacerbates what they’re going through.”
Boldt said the Counseling Center is available for students at any point in the year and wants to help either in person or virtually. This academic year, the Counseling Center has helped 1,655 students in person and an additional 965 students through Academic Live Care.
“We’ve prioritized making sure a student can get in within a realistic timeframe and it’s important to us to make that happen,” Boldt said. “We’re ready to bring students in as fast as possible so we encourage them to come in at any time of year because we want to help them out.”
To make a free appointment with Baylor Counseling visit their website or call (254)-710-2467.
