(PS1-92) Meeting Students Where They Are: Preliminary Findings from a University Behavioral Health Consultants Program

Emerging adults report high prevalence rates for any mental illness (SAMHSA, 2022), and mental health problems among college students increased nearly 50% between 2013 and 2021 (Lipson et al., 2022). At the same time, college students report often not seeking professional help due to perceived lack of need, lack of time, and stigma (Hunt et al., 2010), and college counseling centers have an increased demand without increased funding (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2022). Given people often access primary care for mental health needs (Harris, 2023), the integration of behavioral health services into student health services offers promise as a way to increase reach, and holds great potential to increase access to services for minoritized individuals (Kolko & Perrin, 2014) who may be reticent to seek specialty mental health services. In this model, medical providers use a “warm handoff” method to refer students to see a Behavioral Health Consultant (BHC) during their medical visit. The present poster will describe the development of a BHC service at a medium-sized university in the southeastern United States, following the recommendation of the ACHA (2010). After an initial meeting of stakeholders, we conducted a survey and focus group that informed policies, procedures and implementation (e.g., referral processes, communication, medical records, management of risk) In addition, we will describe BHC utilization and satisfaction. Across 10 months of part-time BHC services at a student health center, BHCs served 282 students with 72 of those being seen for a second visit. On average, meetings were approximately 20 minutes (significantly longer when risk management was involved) and often involved psychoeducation, Motivational Interviewing, sleep hygiene, relaxation, mindfulness, goal setting (often as part of an exercise as medicine program), and problem-solving. The most common reason for referral was anxiety/depressive symptoms (41%), followed by adjustment problems (often to a medical diagnosis such as an STD, 16%) and sleep difficulties (15%). Suicide ideation was routinely assessed and was endorsed by 16% of clients. Average satisfaction data was 9.03 (SD = .89) on a scale from 1 = not at all satisfied to 10 = extremely satisfied. In addition, 89% of clients indicated that they would not have sought services elsewhere. Qualitative data indicated high levels of provider and student health service staff satisfaction. Although preliminary data is promising, long-term outcome data on student functioning is currently lacking.