McKenna describes the function of Quinnipiac’s CARE team<\/span><\/a><\/p>\nMcKenna explained that a CARE referral could come from any number of sources that are connected to the student of concern in some way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur referrals come from a variety of people \u2013 faculty, fellow students\u2026 anyone inside or outside the (Quinnipiac) community,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cIt can be parents and family members as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
McKenna described how the CARE team categorizes various warning signs in students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage folks to look for three buckets of behaviors: health and wellness behaviors, situational concerns and also behavioral concerns,\u201d McKenna said. <\/p>\n
McKenna went on to explain what symptoms from each of the three categories look like. <\/p>\n
\u201cHealth and wellness concerns can be excessive substance use, it could be a student who disclosed that they have been experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, injuries, chronic illness, etc.,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cBehavioral concerns can be anything from a student who is really disruptive in class, a student who is engaging in threatening behavior with others, that type of thing. The last is situational \u2013 the loss of a loved one or family member, students who may be experiencing homelessness or food insecurity, interpersonal conflict with another person on campus or somewhere.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Graphic by Jeremy Troetti<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Lynn Hendricks, associate dean of student affairs and core member of the CARE team, explained the various behaviors that get reported, and how the CARE team handles the referrals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an entire range (of behaviors)\u2026 there are students who we are afraid might hurt themselves to students just not going to class at all,\u201d Hendricks said. \u201cI think what\u2019s really nice about our team is that we treat every situation as if it\u2019s the most urgent situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks explained that her role on the CARE team is very comprehensive, as she supervises the leaders of the different departments students can be referred to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m listening if a student\u2019s not feeling well,\u201d Hendricks explained. \u201cI\u2019m also trying to look at what was the student\u2019s behavior, because I supervise conduct\u2026 Do they live in housing, because I supervise housing. For each case, I try to think about resources\u2026 How can we best help the student? What\u2019s the issue, and then also, what are the resources?\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly to Hendricks, Christy Chase, director of student health services at Quinnipiac, explained that the various departments of CARE work together to evaluate how to best help the student in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can go from having someone with a very serious illness or injury that we\u2019ve seen here (at the university health center) and then I\u2019ll let other departments know, whether it be academics\u2026 How do we support this student? What can we do?\u201d Chase said. \u201cIf it was something they went through that was traumatic, are they hooked up with counseling? Do we have things in place? I think the CARE team is wonderful at that \u00ad\u2013 looking at it from a holistic perspective of all the different disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
*Statistics from CARE (2017) <\/strong>Graphic by Jeremy Troetti<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\nBeyond members of the CARE team, student organization leaders receive training from the CARE team to learn how to identify potential issues in the students they work with.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Graphic by Jeremy Troetti<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Quinnipiac senior Rosie Persiani, who is both the editor-in-chief of Montage, the university\u2019s art and literary magazine, and is a peer catalyst for the university\u2019s First Year Seminar class, explained the training she received from CARE.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are told what to look out for with some of our members, what to do in case one of our members is going through something (and) how to report it,\u201d Persiani said.<\/p>\n
Persiani believes that the training student leaders receive from CARE is helpful, and has especially made an impact on her role as editor-in-chief of Montage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can use our discretion if we need to report (a student) or not,\u201d Persiani said. \u201cIf we feel that we need to, we say something. Especially with Montage, because so many people share so many things at the open mic (events), it was helpful to have that training from CARE so I can distinguish if something is actually a call for help or if it\u2019s just someone\u2019s creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Persiani explained what exactly her training for the peer catalyst role taught her to look for in the students she assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith students, you not only have to pay attention to their performance in the classroom and their grades, but what is their norm,\u201d Persiani explained. \u201cIf a student regularly doesn\u2019t come to class and then starts coming to class every day and participating, that\u2019s not their norm. And even though that\u2019s a good thing that they\u2019re coming to class and participating, we have to check in with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Persiani navigates the CARE form, accessible via Quinnipiac\u2019s MyQ webpage. Photo by Jeremy Troetti.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Much like Persiani, Quinnipiac senior Lauren Heery, a student orientation leader for two years, explained that she went through training to identify potential warning signs in students\u2019 behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201c(CARE) mostly discussed how to identify warning signs in the new students, such as if they\u2019re struggling with adjusting to college and getting homesick, or are struggling to keep up with school work, things like that,\u201d Heery said. \u201cAnd they also explained to us the resources we had available to help the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Heery explained that she has never had to refer a student to CARE, she has had students reach out to her seeking various resources on Quinnipiac\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n
Leah Lavin, who is a peer mentor at Quinnipiac, described the training that CARE provides to peer mentors.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor (the) peer mentor (position), we had a representative from both the health center and learning Commons come in again and talk to us about the resources the CARE team can provide,\u201d Lavin said. \u201cThis training wasn\u2019t as structured due to the smaller group size and that many of us had already been trained on the CARE team resources through previous experiences since we were all upperclassmen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n\n
Graphic by Jeremy Troetti<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Persiani explained that she has experienced having to refer a student to the CARE team due to a concerning piece the student performed at one of Montage\u2019s open mic events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had to say something to the CARE team about an incident at an open mic,\u201d Persiani said. \u201cIt was told to the (residence hall directors), who then took it forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks, who began working in higher education in 1990, and has worked on similar behavioral intervention teams at the University of North Florida and Florida International University (FIU), described a specific concerning case that she and other members of the CARE team had to address.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the situations that I think everyone on the team found particularly challenging is we had a student who was consistently getting arrested. But it was all happening off campus, so our public safety wasn\u2019t responding to it,\u201d Hendricks explained.<\/p>\n
Hendricks said that the CARE team did find particular difficulty in addressing this case, due to the arrests not occurring on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were doing some checking and finding out that he was in different counties, doing different things and getting in trouble,\u201d Hendricks said. \u201cSo we talked about as a team how we should approach it. Because as a team, we are equipped to talk about if you\u2019re not going to class, we have the tools, or if you\u2019re telling us you\u2019re sad, we can talk about it with counseling. But when someone is involved in serious situations away from the campus, how do we approach it?<\/p>\n
Following confirmation of the student\u2019s arrest, members of the CARE team determined that the university\u2019s \u201ccommunity\u201d extends to every member of it, and the student was suspended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of dialogue, because people felt really strongly \u2018Well if it\u2019s not happening on campus, it\u2019s not a problem for us\u2019… but I was really pleased that we were able to agree that our community extends and that we do have to worry about people\u2019s behavior on campus, but also away from campus,\u201d Hendricks said. \u201cThe student actually was suspended from the university and then that prompted parent involvement, so the student could get help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks highlighted the importance of having a team to make decisions such as these, rather than just one individual.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m one of those individuals who believes that you need a group to assess situations,\u201d Hendricks said. \u201cYou need to hear different perspectives and different opinions. It shouldn\u2019t be one person decides (an appropriate course of action).\u201d<\/p>\n
As for how the CARE team can increase its impact on Quinnipiac\u2019s campus, Hendricks explained that she believes the university should seek to hire additional members of the team to address both legal and academic advising issues.<\/p>\n
McKenna explained that she is working on putting together documentation to further increase the impact of the team at Quinnipiac.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am working on a document folder that looks like a manila folder printed with campus resources on it, [including] general behaviors that we want people to refer to us and what that looks like in real life,\u201d McKenna said. \u201cWhat are some of the signs and symptoms that might let someone know that maybe a student might have a substance abuse issue or a student might be experiencing depression or someone might be moving toward a potential act of violence on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendricks believes that the goal of the CARE team is to not simply discipline students, but rather do what is best for their well-being.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it\u2019s always the same goal to get the individual the help they need, while keeping in mind the safety of the entire community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Quinnipiac, and many other colleges, formed behavioral intervention teams following the 2007 shooting on the Virginia Tech campus. Read the full story here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[250],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capstone-projects","tag-homepage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1956,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/1956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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![\"Graphic](\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Mental-health-info.jpg\")
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![\"*Statistics](\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Percentage-of-counseling-students.jpg\")
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![\"Persiani](\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/IMG_9752.jpg\")
![\"Graphic](\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Rosie.jpg\")