|By Chantelle Rochester

Director of the Counselling and Psychological Services Centre (CPSC) at Northern Caribbean University’s (NCU) Mrs. Janet Cain-Walters says they have launched a ‘Drop-in Session’ programme to promote cognitive, and emotional wellbeing amongst students.

The programme launched on April 15, 2019, will facilitate counselling sessions on Mondays between the hours 10:00 am-11:00 am. Students will be assigned to one of the three counsellors namely, Sharon Anderson, Sandra Knight and Janet Cain’Walters for 15-20 minutes.

Cain-Walters says she hopes to create a safe space for students to come and have a ‘chat’ with counsellors, receive advice and develop soft skills.

“We aim to continue to meet the needs of students as we are in service to them, as a result we formulated our ‘Drop-In Session’ to be used as a medium in which students can confidentially vent their issues or challenges to a chosen counsellor, receive advice specific to their needs, develop soft skills, and or additional help if necessary,” she said.

She added that the Drop-In Session is the brainchild of Resident Counsellor Sharon Anderson who is passionate about the wellbeing of students and has realized that this service was lacking in the department when students were visiting counsellors to ask advice on a pending decision or to simply talk about their day.

“Usually when students come to utilize our services, we ask them to complete some applications so that we may have a more refined idea of what services they may need, from this assessment we understood that students sometimes may just need to stop by to have a chat with someone and Anderson came up with the Drop-In session programme,” she said

Resident Counsellor Sharon Anderson said this programme serves to identify several needs of students and to change the perception that individuals only visit the department for mental issues.

“I believe that having an early conversation with students can minimize any further impact of mental health issues. Casually speaking with them will help to clear any doubts they may have about mental health, as some students tend to diagnose themselves after completing courses such as Introduction to Psychology.  She added that improvements will be made to the programme as time goes by, as it is currently in its initial stages.

The CPSC aims to provide holistic counselling & psychological services to the NCU population and its publics, to enhance the social, emotional, wellbeing, of its loyal customers, served by their most efficient and dedicated staff and reliable technology thereby upholding spiritual, moral professional, and ethical standards in the delivery of service to all people and to God.