CAPS Techniques and Trainings

CAPS will hear and work with students with respect to change in how CAPS carries out its mission.

In the past year CAPS has hired two new psychological counselors and added two psychiatric consultants, which expanded psychiatric coverage by roughly eight hours a week. Both new and established staff engage in continuing education through reading seminars (recent themes included vulnerability) which all senior staff, independent contractors, and trainees participate in. Trainees receive two hours of weekly individual supervision, participate in seminars on issues pertinent to working within college counseling, and develop several lenses of building relationships with and through difference. Moreover, all licensed professionals (senior staff and independent contractors) engage in ongoing continuing education to maintain their state issued clinical licensure, roughly 40 hours every two years. Important parts of continuing education focus on developing skills in working with sameness and difference, including but not limited to, race, sexuality, and gender identity.

The pilot year for CAPS student liaisons was fruitful. The liaisons have worked to increase outreach about both services and policies, in part through a quarterly newsletter, refine website resources such as scheduling methods, gather feedback and act as a touchstone for the needs and understanding of the current student body.

Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) will continue to identify opportunities for continuing education that best equip CAPS staff to meet the needs of the student body, and always welcomes opportunities for dialogue and suggestions from the student community. Details regarding progress during the 2020-21 academic year is available in the Strike Spreadsheet.