The rosemary Furman Counseling Center
The Rosemary Furman Counseling Center focuses on the affairs of women in Barnard College. It was initiated to observe and help the Barnard women with their mental health due to a rising and alarming trend in mental ailments in the College. Serving a population of 1,000 people, the Counseling Center is dedicated in an extensive referral network of other psychologists to offer better services to the female students.
Only certified students and the staff of Barnard college are eligible for the services offered at Rosemary Furman. It is also offers free services to Students and a small fee for staff and their close families. It is situated within the campus and, therefore, easily accessible and convenient to visitors at any time of the day.
In an effort to create awareness and prevent ignorance on the symptoms and effects of mental disorders, the Rosemary Furman Center conducts forums based on their campaign message; Well Woman. The Well Woman campaign encourages lady-students to commit themselves, participate, collaborate an connect with others to ensure their wellness and good health. With this tool, the Counseling Center has succeeded in influencing many female students to visit the Center for testing and screening (Pate, Minas, Cohen and Prince, 2004).
Every Semester, the Center organizes forums within the campus that include training as well as testing. These sessions are based on groups often based on age to create peer-counseling. The training involves communication skills necessary for effective counseling.
It is a requirement that the Counselors undergo training in various aspects to ensure that they are capable to handle the clients with professionalism. Students who serve as the group leaders, too go through training in communication skills and basic principles in counseling to enable them interact efficiently to avoid causing more harm to the patients.
The Furman Center strives to not only reach out to students as well as the staff in distress who are desperate for solutions to their problems but also those individuals seeking to learn the concepts and skills required help their distressed friends. Moreover, it seeks to collaborate with other groups within the campus with similar goals.
The group of counselors represent various specializations such as multicultural issues, wellness, sexual identity eating disorders, anxiety and womens issues. They strive to observe respect to the diverse community of Barnard students. They seek to observe and adhere to the social justice principles set for equality of the American people.
The Center provides programs in which, during interaction, these group members address the difficulties bringing them together as they share their issues. Moreover, keeping the group members occupied enables them to explore their social skills, improve on them and develop better ways in maintaining their relationships with their conditions.
The Principle of preferential option for the poor and vulnerable
Young women are vulnerable to mental disorders due to the distressing life the College offers. This College life is distressing because of the tight schedule of the Curriculum, the high levels of peer pressure affects the young women to great extents. Effects include unwanted pregnancies and drug addiction. They, therefore, need protection to ensure they survive the issues and preserve their dignity. According to the principles of social justice, the less privileged should be given a chance to explore their full potential in a fair society with favorable conditions (Pate, Minas, Cohen and Prince, 2004).
It does not allow discrimination of any kind on the patients consequently leading to a good reputation that attracts patients from every ethnic group. The role of the counselors to the society in which they serve is to create awareness to the public on the importance of testing to ensure that the symptoms are treated early.
Although the center focuses on women studying in the Barnard College, it does not consider any other issue for qualification. It, therefore, offers services to all racial groups, people from different origins and cultures. By dealing with all groups equally, the counselors gain a lot of experience and exposure from various cultures. They are able to learn about many causes of disorders from different origins and cultures as the clients include international students.
Cultural competence
The Rosemary Furman Center has succeeded in equally offering its services and interacting actively with women and girls of different cultures. Although the women share their woes, the causes and impact of the distress and depression is determined by their various cultural backgrounds. For instance, some women from poor backgrounds mostly suffer from inferiority complex but have learned to endure strenuous conditions.
According to the cultural competence standards, judging by the social basic principles, the Center is recommendable in its efforts to accommodate and create a fair and conducive social environment for clients
The organization Structure
The organization has 10 Counselors who organize and plan the events and sessions with the women. The services are organized into two (individual and Group counseling).
Individual counseling
The counseling is based on short-term therapy model partly because the students spend not more than four year in the College and also to save the resources since they are given free-of-charge. The short-term therapy model handles not more than 6 people daily. If a long-term model is necessary, it is treated as a special case and mostly referred to other professionals. The Center strives to exploit limited resources to meet the therapeutic needs of the students.
Group counseling
Group counseling helps patients to realize the fact that they share their problems with other people and that there is no need to hide of be ashamed of their condition. The Center provides programs in which, during interaction, these group members address the difficulties bringing them together as they share their issues. Moreover, keeping the group members occupied enables them to explore their social skills, improve on them and develop better ways in maintaining their relationships with their conditions.
Members of the group are required to participate and keep the issues in the group confidential. As they give their feedback, the members express their feelings about other people's deeds and claims. The participants learn new ways of relating by interacting with group members with whom they share their sensitive issues. Containing 15 people, the group is unique and safe as the members keep their issues confidential. Whatever the members disclose to other members remains strictly confined among the members. The Counselors insist that it is not appropriate to disclose the events of the group to other people not in the group at any time.
Once a counselor determines the signs and symptoms, the client and the counselor agree on a confidential arrangement to have the discussions and medication. The Counselor then refers the student to one of the psychiatrists in the Counseling Center. The meetings between the student and the psychiatrist concern issues that led to the lady's decision to go into counseling as well as the symptoms they are experiencing. The psychiatrist determines the appropriate medication and treatment to address the questions.
Since some of the students report to admission with the symptoms, there is great need for early testing and evaluation on new students to avoid long-term effects going undetected. Due to the reliable services, the center receives a high level of turnout.
The group of Counselors at the Center are made up psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers who collaborate in their tasks. It is a requirement that the Counselors undergo training in various aspects to ensure that they are capable to handle the clients with professionalism. Students who serve as the group leaders, too go through training in communication skills and basic principles in counseling to enable them interact efficiently to avoid causing more harm to the patients.
The students issues
Among the issues that bring students to the Center, include; problems with relationships, feeling stressed, major and minor family issues, pressure with their studies, regrets about relationships, feeling lonely and alone, anxiety and panic attacks, thinking about the future, addictions and undesirable habits, hard drugs and pressure to fit in the peer groups.
I am concerned about the Center, being the only one in an area of 20 miles radius, restricts its services to female students. With facilities enough to accommodate more people and with the rising symptoms of mental disorders in young people, I believe that the management should consider expanding the Center to reach out to more people who need the services.
Since the Center has succeeded in its task to offer services to distressed women effectively, it spares extra resources that are useful in its expansion to reach out to the larger public. By restricting the programs to College students and staff, over time, the resources will go under-utilized.
I also noticed that the staff in the Center are mostly women. This idea obstructs some girls who may not be comfortable around women due to their backgrounds and nature of problems they experience. These girls trust men to confide in them than women. Although it is a women society, the center should adopt a system of organization that will accommodate men into their staff. Employing men not only for creating equal opportunities but also attracting men into the counseling sessions.
Given an opportunity to work in this organization, I will propose the idea to include more people from the public living close to the college. This will enable the Center to serve and benefit the community in which it resides. I will propose lower costs for the services offered for valid and legal neighbors of the College who must confirm and prove that they are indeed natives living in the local area. I will also propose a special program to allow men to benefit from the services at Furman Center.
Using consistent groups that have spent most of their time and shown great progress and improvement, I will use them to reach out to more distressed people. These experienced people are in a good position to serve as leaders and amateur counselors to lure more distressed and vulnerable women in the College. By using these students, the Center will expand to accommodate more people and will consequently require improvement and updating of human resources and facilities.
Conclusion
The Rosemary Furman Counseling Center at Barnard is efficient in its manageable task of attending to female students in the College. It does not allow discrimination of any kind on the patients consequently leading to a good reputation that attracts patients from every ethnic group. The role of the counselors to the society in which they serve is to create awareness to the public on the importance of testing to ensure that the symptoms are treated early.
The counseling program focuses on female students but is free from discrimination of ethnicity and cultural origins. It has more resources to meet the female students' issues than they demand. The program is, therefore, adequate to serve more people. The Center's management can either resolve to include more women from the public or accommodate the men in the College.
The group of counselors adhere to the principles of social justice and multiculturalism. This is essential in producing the best results and recommendable performance.
Reference
In Patel, V., In Minas, I. H., In Cohen, A., & In Prince, M. (2014). Global mental health: Principles and practice.
The Rosemary Furman Counseling Center, Barnard College, Columbia University (2013) http://barnard.edu/counsel
