The Lifeline

5-year-old Dylan used to hide under a gray wicker chair on our porch until Jack was done with supper, then the pair of kindergarteners would play Wiffle ball in our dirt-laden backyard until dark. Dylan is now a sophomore at Michigan State and Jack at Indiana University—they came of age in a neighborhood without struggle, not real struggle anyway, and now they live on their own in places where they are learning to see and grapple with their own challenges and humanity, and that of their new neighbors. The trauma of last week’s shooting hit home for us. Dylan heard the shots within Berkey Hall, hid under a chair and luckily is safe, but now in the days since he and many others are dealing with the traumatic effects. Colleges – much like secondary schools – are at a crossroads these days as they are having to take on more responsibility for the health of their students, addressing trauma, addiction and suicide….the issue is that most of the resources for students require these 20 year old kids to reach out and be proactive, and to find a lifeline—not before crisis, but unfortunately in the midst of it.

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It’s no secret my own son is like many his age trying to manage mental health ups and downs.  He reached out to student services many times during his first couple years at IU, missing classes and isolating as many tend to do, but he did not hear from student services, nor did my wife and I.  These departments are in all likelihood understaffed and overwhelmed with an increasingly challenging mission. They are doing their best amidst impossible circumstances. IU’s response to add a 24/7 virtual mental health system is a good step many colleges have taken.  But these solutions tend to still rely on the student to reach out.  Colleges could use help creating a database that collects input from professors about students who have missed classes.  If a student is missing multiple classes and across multiple courses this could create a flag in the system and prompt student services to reach out. My wife who has taught at the college level tried on her own to help a student but eventually went to administration for guidance, “but I am not sure how they intervened from there,” she said, still worried about the youngster. “I like the database idea because you create a more holistic set of information,” says Haley Gregory, an MSW from New Jersey. “Leaving it up to one professor at these big schools, even small ones, is asking a lot – the students will invariably find their person – maybe it’s a coach, a roommate, a waiter at the diner – but often times they will insulate after trauma or due to depression, so having some data that student services can monitor makes sense.”  As I’ve said from experience raising teens, the best idea for any student transitioning into college may just be to have a relationship with “their person” already established – a therapist, a pastor, someone – so when crisis comes – and it will come – they have a lifeline. For Jack, his lifeline for many years has been Dylan and since going away to school it’s been to our surprise a mental health therapist who he talks with through the zoom, who in some ways has saved his life, and who my wife and I see as an extension of ourselves. We’ve even talked with her, and our son encouraged it. For students at MSU, I wonder who their person is.  I wonder who they need this week. For Dylan, the kid I can still picture playing Wiffle ball in our backyard, his lifeline was Jack.