It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Zandra Polard 0:55
Good morning, Las Vegas, it's Zondra polearm. It's where I am. Thank you for tuning in this morning. You know, I gotta give a special shout out to my sponsor, which is slugging the magazine. Thank you so much for your support for the show. And we look forward to your continued support for mental health awareness. So today, we are talking about higher education. We have Dr. Matt scooty here, and she is the mental health wellness officer for the Nevada System of Higher Education. So thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So I want you to tell us about your role. What do you do? What is this program about? And how is it a service to our community? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 1:46
And feel free to call me Nayla. Okay, thank you for having me here. So as the mental health mental health wellness officer for and chi for Nevada System of Higher Education, I took on this new role to support a federal grant that and she received and, and she is a system that oversees all of the higher education institutions within the state of Nevada, including UNLV, usnr, Great Basin College, and so forth. My alma mater, Nevada State College, as they call it. Absolutely. So the purpose of this grant that we received from SAMSA, which is a federal agency that we're working with, it is a $2.6 million dollar grant, that we are using funds to support mental health initiatives, not only for the students, but also for faculty and staff, because they needed to absolutely being the frontline providers, right. So this grant not only support training program, that we are essentially coordinating with all of the institutions within Nevada, but it's also supporting a system wide survey assessment. So what we want to do with this survey is, you know, we want to find out how our resources, how are they doing? What are some of the mental health programming that exists? You know, are there any barriers to accessing these resources, not only for students, but for faculty and staff? Okay, we want to know, you know, what are some of the areas that we could impose improvements on? What are some of the areas that, you know, essentially have some barriers right now, whether that's access to some of these resources? Or, you know, do they support different areas of mental health that we're not addressing at the moment. And so in addition to doing these, the survey assessment, were then providing trainings, the two types of trainings that we're leading with this grant is mental health first aid, which all of the institutions are implementing Wait, so what was it again, Mental Health First Aid training, mental health for state training, okay. And the other and the other one is to site intervention training. Okay. So if you think of it, they're kind of like a two part training program, right. The first one is mental first aid training. So with Mental Health First Aid training, what you're doing is you're providing this overview for faculty, students and staff on the various mental health concerns that anyone could experience or be diagnosed with or struggle with. And then if you're interested in partaking additional training for suicide intervention, specifically, what that program does it not only does it provide an overview overview of what suicide is, but it also prepares you on how to respond, how to address some of those concerns, or how to engage with someone who's having suicidal thoughts.

Zandra Polard 4:14
So does that psychology department are they are their students required to take part in in this initiative,

Unknown Speaker 4:21
so students are not required. This is strictly a program that we are offering statewide to all institutions, and it's strictly volunteer. What we are doing is working with each of the institutions to promote these upcoming training programs to tell their faculty to tell their students and staff Hey, we're offering this free of charge encouraging them to take part yes, absolutely. Because I feel like when it comes to mental health, the biggest thing you can do is educate and advocate everyone and tell them, you know, what are some of those warning signs? What are some of those concerns? How do you respond effectively? Or what kind of conversations can you have? What can you say, in order to help someone get the resources that they need?

Zandra Polard 4:59
Okay, so let me ask you a few questions. Okay. Okay. So say so a fellow student is displaying displaying signs that are not typical of themselves as those, let's say they're being more introverted. Being just very quiet. You notice they're, you know, everyone's having lunch, but they're not. What do you say? Like, how do you introduce the conversation to see if they're okay? Well,

Unknown Speaker 5:28
it depends who's noticing the signs, right? It's their friends, is it their colleagues? Is it their professor say it's the professor? Well, from that perspective, I mean, any conversation that you have with anyone who seems a little off or not like themselves, you want to approach them and see how they're doing, check in with them and see if the if everything's okay, or if they're going through some things that are personal. And this is part of that suicide intervention training that everyone gets when it comes to what kind of conversations you would have in order to assess the situation and see if they need additional resources and help before it's too late. And so, initially, approach the person you see what's going on, and you see if there's anything you need. And then if you do sense of there's something severe going on, it is important to ask if they're thinking of suicide, or if that's something that's crossing the line,

Zandra Polard 6:15
you can just ask someone, like, Are you thinking of suicide, you shouldn't just

Unknown Speaker 6:19
directly ask when assess the situation, first, you want to have that conversation and find out what's going on with them, you know, find out if there are any concerns that they are struggling with mental health, you know, if there's some stressors that are going on anxiety, and so forth. But if you do sense that is, you know, that severe or there some sense or concern of suicide, then it's important to ask, but it's not only important to ask, but it's also important to tell them to let them know that suicide is a serious condition. And that if they are struggling, or if they're thinking of suicide, or if they're having any suicidal thoughts, then it's important to guide them through that right to say, hey, if you're struggling with this, here's some resources you can look into. And in some cases, it's okay to also, you know, walk with them through that, maybe ask if they need help with making that phone call or reaching out to that organization, should they be in that situation? So

Zandra Polard 7:09
is there going to be services on site at the different colleges and universities? So

Unknown Speaker 7:16
each college varies. So for example, UNLV and UN are had the caps department Counseling and Psychological Services, which is on site, mental health resources for students, which is wonderful, right? However, you know, there's some net some scenarios where if those aren't enough resources, then of course, the faculty or staff or whoever is engaging with that particular person, they can also refer them to local community resources as well.

Zandra Polard 7:41
So there are no Are there any counselors? On the campuses of any of the schools?

Unknown Speaker 7:47
So there is counseling for the bigger institution, right? However? UNLV? Absolutely. winnaar? Correct. Okay, yes. And the size of the count, the number of counselors and the size of the counseling department depends on the institution, right, the number of students and number of staff that can vary. However, there are some institutions where they're in remote locations within the state of Nevada, for example, Great Basin college, they're located in northern region of Nevada, kind of remote. So if you were to travel to Reno, they're about four hours outside of Reno. So it's quite the travel on the air, and a very, very small institution. And depending on the size of the institution, the available funding for programming, they may not have anything on site. And those type of situation. What we're doing with these institutions is we're providing them additional fun to look into other resources in programming they can add on campus so that they are providing some type of level of mental health support or the you know, what about

Zandra Polard 8:46
telehealth like, you know, could there be like an emergency call to a telehealth counselors? salutely?

Unknown Speaker 8:51
Yeah, so some of the some of the institutions, what they're doing with their grant funds, they're actually purchasing virtual therapy programs, and they provide crisis intervention, 24/7 phone calls that you can, you know, call in and say, Hey, I'm struggling. And it's not just for students, they're also going to be opening this to their faculty and staff as well, because everyone struggles, there's no limit to who, you know, comes across any mental health concerns. Absolutely.

Zandra Polard 9:15
Yeah, this is wonderful. So when did this get implemented?

Unknown Speaker 9:20
So this started as of last September, September 2022. And the great thing about this program is when we originally got the federal grant, we were obviously focusing on coordinating the effort making sure that all the institutions were aware of this federal grant, reaching out to them to see what funds they were interested in receiving and how they're planning to utilize those funds to support mental health initiatives. So a lot of that in the beginning was coordinating. Now that we have all of those informations, sorted and squared away, we're now working with the institution to make sure that they're reaching out to the vendors who are providing the support system to them. And then with regard to the mental health survey, we actually launched that in April. Okay. We launched it to all of the institutions in including the NCCIH. Office, the system administration office, because a lot of, you know, staff that work there also could be dealing with mental health concerns, right? And it's well green, absolutely. Oh, yeah, stressors, anxiety, and so forth. So when they're working, especially under, you know, stressful situations, whether you're dealing with students directly or indirectly, or even with your own staff, and then trying to adjust from like, COVID error to now post COVID error, yeah. And also try to adjust to your schedule, whether you need to be in person or virtual, and trying to meet those demands for work, all of those crazy stressors. So it's important that with this, with this loan with its grant that we got, we are supporting everyone on the board, whether it's assessing to find out what their needs are, but also providing training to support and educate them and advocate them for their care. This

Zandra Polard 10:44
is awesome on. And you know, I want to give a shout out to Dr. Crab who introduced us. So thank you so much. Thank

Unknown Speaker 10:51
you, Dr. Brad. Yeah, so I'm so glad we connected. Yes, absolutely.

Zandra Polard 10:55
So now, we are heading into the fall semester. What is the plan? What's going on? What are you setting up for the upcoming school semester? That's

Unknown Speaker 11:07
a really great question. So right now to prepare for the fall semester, where I'm working directly with each of these institutional leadership's that, who will be overseeing the grant and the funds for the grant to make sure that we are moving forward with ordering a lot of these support services, right? Whether it's supporting existing programming on campus, or looking into partnering with new vendors, they'll provide virtual therapy assistance, and so forth. We're working with them to prepare them so that they are essentially rolling out these services during the start of the fall semester.

Zandra Polard 11:36
So what about like, because I know, when you have groups, what do they call it? The you know, the mentor, mentor lead groups, right? Those are very successful, because it's not individual. Right? And people tend to open up more, or they get a lot of information just from being there and listening and understanding that they're not alone, they see that there are other people who have some of the same are dealing with some of the same situations they are. Is there any mentor led programs that are, you know, available or becoming available soon?

Unknown Speaker 12:13
Yeah, absolutely. It's a great question. So I know that some of the institutions have group therapy sessions that they conduct, which is wonderful, right? Because then then not only can they come on campus and talk amongst their peers about some of their struggle, but they can meet with others who are struggling with similar problems. Yes. Now, I know that some of the other institutions are also creating peer support groups in organization, meaning they they train students, to engage with other students and have this conversation around mental health. Because oftentimes, when you speak to students about mental health, when you are either a faculty or staff, and you may not really relate to them, because of that age gap, or that age difference, when utilize other students and train them about the importance of mental health and train them about the importance of advocating for mental health and having those relevant conversations around stress around depression, and so forth, they then they can lead those conversations with their peers, with other students so that they feel supported. And so those are just some of the initiatives that we're working on,

Zandra Polard 13:09
you know, yeah, I went to college as a mature student. So it was so weird to me, that the younger students were so open, you know, a lot of them were like, telling us their diagnoses, like right in class. So that was very different for me, you know, I come from an era where it's like, you know, you don't say anything. So I just love to see the progress, you know, that, you know, people are opening up, and not that you have to share your personal diagnosis. I'm not saying that. It's just that because of all of the conversation around, you know, breaking the stigma, that millennials tend to be, you know, a lot more open. And so I think that's a great thing. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 13:52
I was just gonna say, you know, breaking down that stigma around mental health, and, you know, the, the concern that, you know, some people may have around having open discussions around mental health struggles, absolutely, that, you know, breaking down for sure. And it's nice to see, you know, all of these different generations openly talk about some of their mental health struggles. Oftentimes, people depending on the cultural background you come from, or how you were raised, or the community you were raised in, sometimes that stigma is so strong, right? Yes, ultimately, that leads to embarrassment or concerns or additional stressors with you know, having to deal with and, and secretly, you know, hide what you're struggling with. And so it's great to see that some of our generations within the institutions are talking about mental health openly. And it's so important because, you know, when it comes to mental health, a lot of people you know, continue to secretly struggle, you wouldn't know if someone is struggling with that. So I think it's important that continue to have this conversation to continue to encourage others to talk about, you know, if you're struggling with some mental health concerns, or if you're struggling because you're, you know, under so much stress, so I'm happy to hear that you know, You saw that and I encourage anyone to either seek resources or, or, you know, find support mechanisms and supporting community that will encourage additional conversation and

Zandra Polard 15:12
don't stop at one. You know, and I know a lot of times it's hard to get appointments is really our people struggle with, you know, when they're finally ready, then they don't have anyone to see because they booked out for two, three months.

Unknown Speaker 15:27
Absolutely. Yeah, it is a struggle right now, I know that even though we have resources on campus or within the community, and unfortunately, it is not enough right to meet our growing need are concerned with regards to mental health and, and people seeking resources for mental health, whether it's yourself or your child, or your significant other partner, and so forth. It is unfortunate. And so that's why we're implementing this grant, so that we are supporting and finding out what are those barriers, you know, to what extent is this is this whole door this wait, you know, for resources that you're looking together for that appointment, you're looking to schedule, we're hoping that the results that we get from the survey in terms of barriers to care to resources, we're hoping that we'll continue to review that and address it and promote additional resources, you know, this is and she's first attempt to really system systematically take an approach to supporting mental health, we don't want to just leave it to the institutions and have them kind of vouch for themselves and try to figure out a way to support mental health. We want to take this initiative and say, Hey, we understand there's a concern, we want to make sure that we not only are we assessing what the extent of that concern, but how can we continue to support mental health system wide? Yes,

Zandra Polard 16:35
yeah. Because, you know, I came from California. And when I started school out here, I was explaining that we already kind of did this thing out there. And I was just really appalled. just shocked that there were no resources at the time. You know, when I was going to Nevada State, however, shout out to Dr. Yao. He got some things started on campus. And that was a beautiful thing. Absolutely. I

Unknown Speaker 17:02
think, you know, regardless of you know, what your status is, as a student with your full time, part time, whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, you know, you're going to come across a mental health concern, you're going to experience some level of stress, some level of anxiety, it's just, you know, we're all

Zandra Polard 17:16
and even first time students, I have a son who's about to start college, and he's like, you know, has a lot of anxiety around it, because it's the unknown, he doesn't even know it. Yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? So it's like, that would be something that a resource for someone like him, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
And also, you know, when we implemented when we have these resources within certain institutional settings is so important, promote it, right, it's so important to let everyone know, hey, these programs exist, hey, if you're struggling, go to this particular resource, or call this particular number. And so that's something that we're working with the institution to make sure that they are actively promoting these resources. Because when you're a new student, you don't know where to go, contact and be

Zandra Polard 17:58
a part of the whole culture of the school United mean, like, Don't separate yourself and not get involved. Everything that that school offers, with student campus life, they need to be involved. That makes people feel comfortable, right? Oh, they're always there. You know, wherever I go to a campus event, the with the department we call

Unknown Speaker 18:24
Student Affairs, the Student Affairs is

Zandra Polard 18:27
there. So yeah, I just want to encourage with this incentive, to make sure that you attend everything that the school is doing.

Unknown Speaker 18:36
Absolutely, absolutely. It's so important to have, you know, conversation to promote resources to advocate and engage students, you know, and in communicating and letting their thoughts known and their concern known it's so great to see that happening now, because oftentimes, in the past, you wouldn't know, right? So again, continuing to, to promote it to support in different ways, you know, reaching out to students letting them know, hey, this event is happening, or this new resource is being implemented, and it's part of your tuition, why not take advantage of being supported? With your money? Exactly. Yeah. So we're excited. You know, the

Zandra Polard 19:12
biggest part of that is that I love that the faculty and staff can be involved. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's great. Because, you know, the students, I think they kind of look up to them, like, you know, children due to their parents. Oh, yeah. You know, like, they know everything. They have the answer, and it's like, they might be struggling having a hard time teaching in front of the class. We don't know. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 19:35
There's been a lot of feedback we received from faculty and staff, especially faculty were like the frontline providers, right? The frontline educators, for students, oftentimes, they don't know how to approach a certain situation or if they see a student who's struggling, they don't know what resources to share, because maybe they're not familiar with everything on campus. So again, you know, we want to make sure that those faculty members know how to affect The only approach a student if they know someone is, you know, struggling or not doing well or need needs to talk to somebody, but not only know how to approach them, but it's familiar with resources on campus that they can share with them. So when they have when

Zandra Polard 20:13
you guys do these classes or not classes, but when you have these trainings, do you separate the trainings for the students, and then for the faculty and staff? Because I'm thinking, if it was just one training for everybody, the perspectives are so different from the different levels of education? You know what I mean? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 20:36
so that's a really good question. So the institution that we're working with, so the way that they're doing it, they're actually scheduling multiple training sessions, right. Again, the funds are supporting different training schedules, and so forth. And what they're doing is they'll have some sessions, specifically just for students, and some specifically just for faculty and staff. But some are also implementing training for everybody. Because think about it. I mean, while you know, they both have different perspectives and different understanding different concern, I think bringing them together and having faculty and staff hear about some of the mental health concerns that students are facing, or vice versa. I think it's important to you know, engage conversations amongst everybody, because you never know what outcome can come from that, what information they would learn from that, and what insight they might get from it. Well, I

Zandra Polard 21:21
love that. But I also liked the fact that they are separated as well, so that then the staff, and the educators can talk about some of the things and share what they see in class, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, they can talk about that stuff. And then, you know, the other trainings that you have that are all inclusive for everyone. That's awesome, too. Yeah, and what, you guys got a lot of money, to do a lot of things, you know, we're excited,

Unknown Speaker 21:50
thank you, we're doing our best. And you know, the great thing, the other great thing about these training programs that we're rolling out is they're also going to be offered in person or online. So we want to make sure that we're offering different learning platforms, if you're not able to attend in person, then let's look into coordinating something online. So that someone who's feels more comfortable, you know, within their own comfort of their own home or dorm, or whatever the case is, they can log on and get that training awesome. Versus someone who's like, No, I want to be in person and have more engaging learning opportunities and ask questions and be led by an instructor. You know, there's different platform that they can be trained in, of course, you get different information, different level of information from each of the training session that you partake in. But again, this is a great initiative that we're taking to making sure that we talk more about mental health, but also we prepare and educate people on how to respond how to help others.

Zandra Polard 22:41
And I'm sure that the Psychology Department will be working very closely with the students to participate, which I think is awesome. And then that peer support piece that you mentioned, where the students can get involved. Hey, I see extra credit there.

Unknown Speaker 22:54
Right? Yeah, absolutely. So there's so many ways that we can continue to continue to support these programs. And it's just a matter of starting somewhere, and then seeing where you can go from there. Awesome.

Zandra Polard 23:04
Is there anything else you'd like to share with this? Are there any social media handles or anything that you would like our listeners to know? Yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 23:14
So some of this information can be checked out and reviewed on our Enshi website, okay, and she got Nevada that org, or you can also visit some of the institutions and learn about some of the ways that they are supporting mental health through their programming, as well. So we're excited about that. And I know that we've been working directly with their marketing team to make sure that they are promoting some of these upcoming trainings, not only in their website, or through social media, whether it's Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever the case is, we want to make sure that we connect to everybody through different platform. So that's another avenue that we're taking. It's awesome,

Zandra Polard 23:46
including this one. It's where I am on 91.5. Jas and more. So thank you so much for sharing all have this wonderful information with me and our listeners. And, you know, I like I said, my son is about to enter college. And so this is some valuable information I could share with him as well.

Unknown Speaker 24:07
Absolutely. And best of luck to him and wonderful being a part of this show. Thank you for having me.

Zandra Polard 24:12
Thank you. Well, 91.5, jazz and more. Thank you for tuning in. You know, I'm here every Saturday at 7:30am. And if you just caught me, and you want to hear this whole entire broadcast again, you know, you're always welcome to go on Apple, Spotify, Google or Amazon podcast platforms, just type in. It's where I am with Zondra and I'll pop right up and go ahead and subscribe. Also, it's where I am.com my shows are there and as well as YouTube. So again, I'm Sondra polearm. I'm here every Saturday, and we'll talk to you next week. But before I let you go I'm gonna play a little tune for you it's called Midnight maneuvers by King James Brown by

Unknown Speaker 25:21
we have been waiting for you day long right here I just want us to melt into each other Oh work my fingers to the bone did I was great for chicken feet

Unknown Speaker 26:01
good when we turn out the lights and close the door

Unknown Speaker 26:09
with them

Unknown Speaker 26:37
just you just do when me dan gang gang

Unknown Speaker 27:32
let's not go to gang gang

Unknown Speaker 27:53
always something stressing me from day to day from strangers to friends

Unknown Speaker 28:05
and cave seem to go one way with

Unknown Speaker 28:17
good when we need to one wow

Unknown Speaker 28:27
there we go

Unknown Speaker 28:52
just you

Unknown Speaker 28:55
just you and me wrapped in that to see Ying Ying Yang

Unknown Speaker 29:42
shucks you want me

Unknown Speaker 29:45
to wrap a good day

Unknown Speaker 29:53
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