For Faculty / Administrators 

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At Counseling and Psychological Services we are firmly committed to creating positive alliances and collaborations with faculty, staff, and administrators at Fordham University. CPS staff regularly provide educational outreach on a number of common mental health issues to various departments on campus, and we welcome additional requests or ideas about such services.

CPS staff is available to assist you with individual consultations as well. As faculty, staff, and administrators, you may interact with students on a day-to-day basis in a way that CPS staff do not. As a result, you may be in a position in which you observe concerning changes in a student before we have even met that student. Should you have any questions or concerns about a student with whom you've been interacting, please do not hesitate to contact us. CPS staff are available for consultation by phone during regular work hours and are happy to advise and support you as you think through how to support your students. Fordham offers an online training course, called Kognito, on identifying students of concern and addressing concerns with students.  Please see below a letter from CPS Director Jeffrey Ng on accessing and using the program.  For more information about how to respond to mental health emergencies, please refer to the  Mental Health Brochure

Should you have any pressing concerns about a student, please contact the Dean of Students during business hours or the Security Supervisor 24 hours a day. You may also call the Dean of Students or Security if you believe that a student needs to be seen right away and he/she refuses. Personally walking a student over to one of these offices might help in the event that he/she is hesitant to ask for help. Additionally, please see our "Concerns About Suicide" link on the left hand side of this page for some valuable information tailored to faculty, staff, and administrators at Fordham (you can click on "Info for Faculty").

Please take a moment to look at the Faculty Brochure (.doc file). It offers useful information about working with the emotionally distressed student. The brochure discusses:

• Faculty and Staff Roles
• Cross Cultural Communication
• The Verbally Aggressive Student
• The Violent Student
• Substance Abuse
• The Distressed and Anxious Student
• The Suicidal Student
• How to contact CPS

Following the occurrence of traumatic events that affect Fordham students, faculty may encounter students who are experiencing distress and bereavement. Please consult this hand-out regarding dealing with the aftermath of trauma in the classroom.

recognizing and assisting studeNts in distress

 
Today’s college students  are experiencing increasing academic, financial, familial and social stressors, which can lead to significant emotional distress  and contribute to or exacerbate serious  psychological problems, such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and other mental health concerns.  Unfortunately, these concerns can interfere with students’ academic functioning and at times compromise their ability to remain in school.

As faculty and staff, you play an important role in ensuring that students receive the assistance, guidance and support they need to flourish intellectually, academically and psychologically during their time at Fordham. To support you in this role, the office of Counseling and Psychological Services offers an interactive online training, Kognito, that has been empirically demonstrated to assist faculty with learning best practices for identifying, approaching, and if necessary, referring students in psychological distress. This training has also been identified by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as a best practice resource for preventing suicide.

We strongly encourage you to participate in this online course, which we trust will contribute to the realization of our University’s mission to provide an education that is student-centered, attentive to the development of the whole person, and based on close collaboration between students, faculty and staff. To begin, please go the following website:

http://aruf.kognito.com

To create a user id, click on the “Access Training” link and enter your name, Fordham email and the following enrollment key: fordham25.

We are confident that you’ll find this training informative and useful in supporting your professional growth and development at Fordham. Please contact me at jeng@fordham.edu if you have any questions or feedback about the course. Thank you.

Jeffrey Ng, Psy.D.

Director

For parents

Please see the CPS Neswletter for 2011, on easing the transition to college.