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UNK Student Health and Counseling paid for a new online resource called “Togetherall” where students can post anonymously about mental health struggles. The office also offers three free mental health counseling sessions for full-time students.
The typical wait time in the community for your first counseling appointment is 4-6 weeks right now.
“Usually, the beginning of the fall semester is not as busy because many students are new and do not know about it, everybody’s got a lot going on and trying to figure out their stuff,” said Kiphany Hof, Counseling Center practitioner and associate director. “This is the time right now until the end of the semester where it’s going to be consistently busy and full and most people don’t just come for one session.”
The counselors require students to schedule a session four to ten working days ahead of time, but it also depends on how available the student is. Based on the students availability they may be able to get in sooner or later than the four to ten days.
Full-time students, that aren’t just online, are eligible for three free sessions each semester. The cost of the first three sessions are covered in every student’s tuition and fees under Student Health and Counseling.
All students get their first three sessions for free every semester, but after that it costs $10 a session.
The first session is about 20-30 minutes, and it is to see if the counseling services are a good fit for that person. After the first three sessions, each bi-weekly session is roughly 45 minutes.
“We would like to help anyone that wants to come to counseling with whatever they need, but sometimes there are students that come to us that need more than short term counseling,” Hof said. “Like maybe they’ve been in counseling every week for the last couple years in high school and they know they’ll need that level throughout college. So, we would probably try to match them with a counselor in the community because we don’t do long term care at the counseling center.”
Some students may not want counseling at UNK or in the community. So, the Student Health and Counseling Center paid for “Togetherall” for all students to have access to.
Togetherall is a strictly online resource for peer-to-peer support, meaning students can post about anything going on in their life on the website under an anonymous username.
All you have to do is go to the website, use your UNK email and answer a few simple questions regarding your mental health then it will give you access to everything for free.
They have several self-assessments and self-help courses available as well.
It is used globally by other universities as a safe place for college students to communicate with each other.
Togetherall is monitored by licensed mental health professionals 24/7 so if someone were to post some kind of safety concern, they would address it right away.
“I think it is a really appealing option for people that may feel alone but they either don’t want to see a counselor or whatever personal reasons they might have,” Hof said. “It’s a way for people to get support anonymously since some people don’t wanna share who they are, or if it’s 2 in the morning and they don’t have access to a counselor.”
