CAPS Diversity Committee offers outreach, support

If your leg is broken, you see a doctor. If your heart or mind is broken, your response should be no different.

That’s the message Counseling and Psychological Services and its Diversity Outreach Team are trying to relay to minority, international, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students at IU.

“Our main goal is getting information out to underrepresented groups,” committee member and doctoral student Whitney Stewart said. “Information that can help them maintain their mental health.”

The team was created two years ago and is supervised by Dr. Paul Toth, a CAPS staff psychologist. The rest of the team consists of doctoral counseling and students such
as Stewart.

The outreach team works with several campus offices and organizations to offer outreach and programming at campus events. It also offers a wide range of
counseling opportunities and conducts research into diversity and
psychological issues.

“We deal with stress, harassment, procrastination, body image — the list goes on,” Stewart said. “We’re just trying to raise awareness on how to deal with all of these issues.”

Eric Love, the director of the Office of Diversity Education, has worked with the team often in the past year and half and said he thinks it’s a vital part of CAPS.

“They really do a great deal of interacting with and reaching out to students,” Love said. “They’re a constant presence at all IU’s cultural events. They’ve also done workshops on suicide for faculty that work with students of color.”

Love said the committee’s goal  is more important than ever, especially as groups such as blacks and Hispanics do not traditionally seek counseling.

“This day and age, there seems to be a higher rate of depression among students,” Love said. “There’s been a rash of suicides, both here at IU and across the nation. Students are at risk, so it’s important to let students know that CAPS has these compassionate, caring, insightful counselors that are here to help them.”

Stewart said she agreed and reaching out to minority students is of the utmost importance. In the past year, she said, IU has seen two black students commit suicide.

“We are here to let these students know that CAPS is here for them,” Stewart said. “It’s a place they can always turn to when they are struggling and don’t know where else to go.”