Our Mission
The Student Counseling Center provides a safe, affirming, and non-judgmental environment where students can openly share their concerns. Utilizing a short term service model, our services are focused on resources, solutions and strategies to deal with your concerns. We provide individual, group, and couples counseling, outreach activities, as well as psychiatric services. We are staffed by licensed mental health providers as well as having a psychiatric team on site.
Our Commitment to Equity in Mental Health
As a center, we understand the impact of mental health on a college student. Nearly every student experiences something that impacts their sense of well-being while in college and experiences of marginalization and oppression often exacerbate these concerns. Mental health problems can affect many areas of students’ lives, including their quality of life and relationships, academic achievement, physical health and satisfaction with their college experience.
We are also committed to diversity, social justice and equity in mental health. Who we are encompasses a wide range of variables that make up our collective and individual cultural identities, including ethnic/racial identity, nationality, sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, age, religious/spiritual beliefs, socioeconomic status, body shape/size, and ability status. We recognize and acknowledge the impact that stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, oppression and marginalization have on mental health, and we are committed to creating a campus community that embraces and celebrates diversity in all its complexity. In our commitment to creating a safe, inclusive environment, you can expect us to be welcoming and affirming.
Our Plans for Comets Giving 2020 Campaign
Student Counseling Center Equity in Mental Health Fund
The Student Counseling Center has recently built a Diversity, Social Justice and Equity Committee that assists us in forming mission, values and aspirations for equity in mental health. The committee advises the SCC leadership, coordinates staff diversity trainings, provides consultation to staff and helps to coordinate our internal climate survey and response. We would like to create a fund that helps us better support these initiatives!
This fund would expand some of our newer initiatives and allow us to bring new ideas to reality. We anticipate the initiatives that come out of the equity fund would result in 1) decreased stigma related to mental health, 2) increased support for students disproportionally impacted by oppression and marginalization, 3) increased mental health promotion and awareness, 4) faculty being better equipped to address equity concerns in classrooms and 5) increased support of counselors and staff who work closest with our equity efforts.
Here are some initiatives we envision:
- Emergency Fund for Interpersonal Violence Survivors
- Mental Health Summit
- Equity in Mental Health Trainings for Students, Faculty & Staff
- Specific Compensation for Equity Coordinator Roles within SCC
- Staff Support Initiatives to Decrease Social Justice Fatigue
- And, so much more!!!
If you have additional ideas about additional ways that the Student Counseling Center can utilize funds collected in the Comets Giving Day 2020 Campaign, please contact our Director of Community Engagement, Dr. Prachi Sharma at prachi.sharma@utdallas.edu.
More information about our commitment to equity and social justice and resources for students can be found on our website at https://utdallas.edu/counseling/recenteventssupport/.
