Navigating the ups and downs of college life is challenging enough, and finding support when it’s needed shouldn’t be an added stressor. But, we know that’s not always the case: although students report higher rates of mental health challenges and crises in recent years, we also see patterns of underutilization of available resources. Leaders at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) knew this problem all too well and have worked to reimagine crisis navigation to address these challenges.
Understanding the Trends
With mental health needs on the rise, campuses are working tirelessly to innovate and expand services for students. But a 2023 study found that 50% of students with mental health needs have not accessed care; in similar studies, this number climbs as high as 60% and 63%.
These trends leave many leaders in higher ed asking the same questions: What are the barriers that prevent students from seeking help when they need it? And what can we do to counteract these barriers and promote help-seeking among students in times of need?
Case Study: Cal State Fullerton
These are the questions that Dr. Vincent Vigil, Senior Associate Vice President of Engagement and Well-Being & Dean of Students at Cal State Fullerton, and his team have been working to answer in recent years. As the largest institution in the Cal State system, the third-most diverse campus in the country, and a designated Hispanic-, Asian American- and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution, CSUF is committed to fostering an inclusive environment for its more than 43,000 students. And this is no easy task: “Given this diversity, the challenge of effectively disseminating vital information to our students, faculty, and staff has become more pressing. We needed to find an innovative solution to streamline communication and ensure that students have access to the resources they need,” Dr. Vigil shared.
Nationwide data points to an array of barriers that prevent students from utilizing the available crisis resources, and we heard these trends echoed in the feedback from our joint session at NASPA Strategies this year. These barriers include:
- Limited appointment availability and long (typically two to five week) wait-times to schedule with on-campus counseling services
- Limited knowledge of available resources:
- 40% of undergraduate students don’t know where to turn for crisis support
- 50% of staff and faculty don’t know where to direct students and 74% would like more training on how to support students in crisis
- Limited resources for specific student groups that may have unique needs, such as:
- Online students
- Racial, ethnic, and gender-identity groups that have been historically marginalized
- First generation students
- Low-income and/or uninsured students
- Concerns about confidentiality and impact on academic standing
- Stigma related to help-seeking
In the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, CSUF launched the YOU platform to provide students with a new layer of upstream support. Led by Dr. Kevin Thacker Thomas, Senior Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), YOU at Fullerton provides students, staff, and faculty with an upstream, comprehensive tool to foster well-being and student success. “When students have questions or need assistance, their first stop is often online,” notes Dr. Thacker Thomas. “YOU at Fullerton serves as that essential online resource for CSUF students and offers reliable information 24/7, allowing students to utilize it throughout each academic year and their entire academic journey and empowering them to thrive during their time at Cal State Fullerton.”
The YOU platform not only supports upstream care, but it also supplemented CSUF’s existing “red folder” system by providing students with a Help in Crisis button on the site which connects them with access high-priority crisis resources. Early user data indicated a large number of students were accessing crisis resources through YOU.
The Limitations of the Red Folder
Staff and faculty at Cal State Fullerton have access to digital “red folders” which contain a bank of resources created by the Cal State system to support students in crisis. Similar crisis folder systems exist across campuses nationwide to provide faculty with crisis resources and guidelines – serving as an entry point to supporting students in need. However, these systems come with their own limitations, too:
- Static nature of resource banks (difficult to maintain accurate and up-to-date information)
- Limited variation in resource type included – crisis can take many forms!
- Limited training for staff and faculty on how to utilize the resources and/or support students in navigating them
- Concerns about confidentiality and impact on academic standing
- Stigma related to help-seeking
An Innovative Solution to a Common Challenge
With the limitations of the red folder system and an increase in demand for crisis support on the YOU platform, CSUF moved to expand their continuum of student support and launched HelpCompass in 2022 to provide students, staff, and faculty with a more robust and intuitive crisis navigation experience. This anonymous wayfinding tool matches students, staff, and faculty with on- and off-campus resources: users answer a short set of questions and are provided with a curated list of resources that is specifically tailored to the needs they’ve identified. Available 24/7, HelpCompass minimizes the barriers students may face when seeking help and ensures they access the right door for the support they need.
CSUF launched HelpCompass “to provide a user-friendly, accessible university platform for our campus community and external stakeholders,” says Dr. Vincent Vigil. “The tool has allowed us to achieve this with a personalized, comprehensive list of resources tailored to meet the unique needs of our community.” And the impact of HelpCompass has been felt campus-wide: “Since its launch, HelpCompass has been warmly embraced across the university and praised for its ease of use and the breadth of resources it provides. It has become an invaluable tool, enabling quick and seamless referrals to support services for students who need immediate assistance. HelpCompass has truly strengthened our university’s capacity to respond to student needs and connect them with the right resources at the right time.”
Evaluating Impact: How Are Students Using HelpCompass?
Since launching HelpCompass, CSUF has conducted two independent surveys to understand the impact it’s had on their students. Most recently, in the Fall of 2024, CSUF’s CAPS department surveyed a sample of HelpCompass users that represent campus-wide student demographics in racial and ethnic identity, gender identity, and year in school.
The data collected highlights the impact of bringing HelpCompass to campus: 91% of students said the tool is easy to use, and 87% said they would recommend the tool to others. Further, students validated that HelpCompass shaped their awareness of resources and perceptions of help-seeking:
- 87% said HelpCompass increased their awareness of campus resources
- 63% have utilized a resource found through HelpCompass or have made an appointment to do so
- 56% have shared information about resource(s) with others
- 74% of students said they feel more prepared knowing there is a website to find help when they need it
CSUF’s survey data and site analytics demonstrate that resources found through HelpCompass go beyond the topic of mental health:
By including this range of resource categories, HelpCompass normalizes the wide variety of challenges students often experience in college and helps students feel it’s okay to reach out for help when they need it.
Lessons Learned: Data-Informed Service Design
Through this analysis, CSUF leaders have been able to develop and enhance services that are responsive to students’ needs – something that all higher education institutions can learn from. For example, based on the HelpCompass survey data and user analytics, CSUF introduced new wellness workshops and therapy groups, including topic-specific “pop-up” groups to create space for students to discuss certain issues in their community in a more informal environment. Similarly, this data helped CSUF identify a need to create a designated mobile crisis team to support students more effectively, launching a new partnership with local law enforcement to support after-hours crisis care.
CSUF has also learned the importance of generating awareness for the well-being and crisis support tools they offer their students. In the first year of conducting their survey of HelpCompass users, they heard valuable feedback about the tool: “Great idea, but not well advertised.” This perception led the CAPS team to prioritize marketing efforts to increase awareness and use of the tool; some effective strategies included:
- Engaging student ambassadors to place door-hangers throughout campus housing and create social media content promoting the tool
- Presenting the tool to classes and specific student and faculty groups, such as athletes, disability services, pregnant and parenting students, and more
- Tabling at high-visibility campus events, including orientation
Make Finding Help Easy in Your Campus Community
As this case study from Cal State Fullerton highlights, we can reduce barriers to help-seeking and increase service-utilization among students in higher ed – we just have to make finding help easy. When students can smoothly navigate and access crisis resources, they are more likely to use them. Making resources universally-available works to destigmatize help-seeking and communicates a message of care from institution to student, in turn fostering a stronger sense of belonging among a campus community.
So, how can you apply these learnings to your campus? Consider the following questions to identify opportunities to expand access and de-stigmatize help-seeking for your students:
- What is the resource landscape for your institution?
- Which resources are well-known and well-utilized? Which are not?
- How do students learn about available well-being and/or crisis resources?
- How do staff and faculty learn about these resources, and what training exists to help them help students in need?
- What barriers may be preventing students on my campus from reaching out?
- What new communication channels could we activate to spread awareness about available resources?
- How could we collect and analyze data on service-utilization?
In answering these questions, you can identify both the strengths of your existing programming and opportunities to increase resource-awareness, service-utilization, and encourage help-seeking in your campus community.
To learn more about how you might be able to utilize HelpCompass to reimagine crisis navigation for your institution, reach out to inquiries@gritdigitalhealth.com.
