Here at the University Of Guelph there has been a significant increase in the demand for counselling. According to the "Student Mental Health Strategy" from April of 2016, there was a 27% increase in appointments for Counselling Services between the 2012/13 and 2014/15 semesters. This is making waiting times longer, counselors taking on more cases, and students feeling helpless.
Our main goal is to provide a pro-active solution to alleviate the stress on the counseling systems. By taking an overflow of students away from these systems, counselors can focus on students who need the most help and may already be at crisis level. The way our system is proactive is by providing students with an alternative resource to discuss any issues that they may be dealing with as well as augmenting the current Student Support Network's model. The hopeful outcome is that this will reduce the amount of people requiring face to face counseling.
As previously mentioned there is a group on campus called the Student Support Network that applies this peer-to-peer support but in a face to face manor. This has been proven to work on campus but these meetings take up space, time, and other valuable resources. Even with the rapid growth in the need for counseling, SSN has to deny a large portion of mentors because they simply don't have the resources to have more mentors. Our website looks to augment their service by providing the ability to increase the amount of mentors resulting in more students being supported while conserving resources such as space. Our website has the ability to track conversations by mentors that can later be referenced as proof they are capable of doing face to face meetings. Currently in SSN first years are not allowed to be a face to face mentor but our website could also be a proving ground for new applicants.
The idea for Guelph Cares was inspired by the fact that so many students are not able to receive the support they need, when they need it. Someone who is feeling physically sick can go sit in a walk in clinic or in the emergency room. The problem with mental health is that seeking help is significantly less common. Here we aim to tackle mental illness with a preventative approach, providing a space to talk to someone knowledgeable, and allowing those who need serious or increased help the resources to do so.
-Advanced monitoring system
-Backend development
-Improved chat
-Integration with Single Sign On
-Increased professional mentors
-Sync'd mentor training schedule
-Actual integration with SSN