NW celebrates diversity in health

This month, campus has been hosting many mental health initiatives specifically focusing on learning disabilities and mental health disorders in the last two weeks, there has been a workshop on ADHD and a depression and anxiety screening.
Most recently, this Monday, Marie Jeppesen campus’s academic support specialist hosted an ADHD workshop for students. Through the event Jeppesen wanted to provide students with “realistic” strategies to cope with negative ADHD symptoms as well as an opportunity for students to connect with each other about their personal experiences with ADHD. Advertised to include fidget toys, the event was met with huge success.
Jeppesen said, “Getting a bunch of students together that can connect, all the way back to childhood, was really special. There are elements of isolation and misunderstanding in ADHD, so finding common ground around such oddly specific things was meaningful for everyone in the room.”
This event also served as an opportunity to foster Northwestern’s value of diversity. Understanding the different ways the mind works is especially important in college which produces an environment where students are especially affected by their learning differences.
Jeppesen explained, “You’re newly responsible for many aspects of being a functional adult while learning and working 10 to 12 hours a day.”
Mental health disorders and struggles, like depression and anxiety, can also become incredibly apparent in college, which is one of the reasons campus has a wellness center to assist students with these issues. Recently, the wellness center had its annual depression and anxiety screening for students.
Campus therapist Justin Derry explained, “The goal was to try to provide an opportunity for students to gauge where they are at with their mental health.”
According to Derry, twice as many students showed up to the event as the last time it was held in the fall of 2020. This piqued interest may be in part due to the increase of mental health struggles in young people in the last few years. Derry pointed out that there has been an increase in anxiety and depression rates recently.
Part of what the wellness center hopes to provide students on campus as a response to growing stress is resiliency, or healthy ways to cope with the stress of everyday life so that abnormal events like the pandemic, social unrest or personal tragedy can become more manageable. To help students achieve a greater amount of resiliency, the wellness center has reached out to the campus’s resident directors to potentially schedule talks for students within their dorms.
Additional events that the wellness center has planned for the semester are an eating disorders awareness display, planned for the second floor of Ramaker, and an alcohol awareness event in April. These events, however, are not the only resources the wellness center provides. As most students know, the wellness center offers free, professional therapy for all NW students year-round. However, they also offer a plethora of additional resources like group therapy, print resources from the center’s library for checkout, digital resources on the campus website, crisis support, consultations for short term therapy (a meeting or two to unpack a singular issue), premarital counseling and a massage chair.