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Senate Bill 968 can increase the number of mental health counselors on California campuses

After struggling with a shortage of mental health counselors for 10 years, the California Faculty Association is sponsoring a new bill aimed at increasing the amount of counselors available to students on California college campuses.

Introduced by Sen. Richard Pan in late January, Senate Bill 968 would require schools in the California Community Colleges, California State University and University of California systems to hire a full-time mental health counselor for every 1,500 students. The bill was ordered to a third reading on the assembly floor last week.

The bill stemmed from the CFA Counselor’s Committee who have been pushing for better staffing in mental health centers on CSU campuses.

“We pushed this thing forward because of our frustration with administrators not paying attention to the problem,” said Mimi Bommersbach, CFA Counselor’s Committee Chair.

The bill particularly references the CSU system and its “woefully understaffed” mental health counseling centers. The Counseling and Psychological Services Center at Long Beach State currently has 15 full-time counselors to serve 37,500 students, placing the counselor to student ratio at 1-to-2,500.

In addition to an increase in counseling staff, the bill would obligate college institutions to report to State Legislature on how funding was spent every three years beginning in 2020. Funding for the bill will be provided by future appropriations.

Although optimistic about the additional resources the new bill could entail, CAPS Director Bong Joo Hwang believes in solving the mental health crisis issue on other levels as well. Hwang suggested prevention was an important strategy in better addressing mental health needs of students on campus.

“It’s not just about adding more counselors to resolve these issues,” Hwang said. “We can tap on other resources by collaborating with other departments and student organizations, so that people know about mental health issues and what they need to do about it, before it gets worse.”

As students today face a growing amount of pressure and stress, the demand for counseling services grows every year. There has been a steady rise in students attending counseling over the past six years, according to data collected by the Center of Collegiate Mental Health at Penn State from over 146 college institutions nationwide.

In recent years, Bommersbach, who also counsels at CSU Chico, has noticed an increasing number of students loading up on units all while maintaining one to two jobs and internships.

“We pile all these expectations on these students,” Bommersbach said. “Students have to eat, they have to rest, they have to play. And as they limit those kinds of activities that are really healthy, it creates this situation of stress and anxiety.”

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