Counseling Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Lily’s Place Holds Ribbon Cutting For Children’s Center

West Virginia lays claim to Lily’s Place, the nation’s first medical center specifically created for infants born from addicted parents. The Huntington facility is now expanding their services to support these growing infants’ siblings and families.

Since 2014, Lily’s Place has served more than 350 babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS). With Huntington having one of the highest opioid addiction rates in the country, organizers found the number of babies born with NAS increasing and knew there had to be a better way to care for them.

They discovered the bright lights, loud beeping equipment and busy atmosphere was the opposite of what babies with NAS need most. Lily’s Place offers private rooms with a quiet atmosphere and dim lighting, which are best for babies with NAS, who are sensitive to light and sound.

Executive Director Rebecca Crowder said the new Children’s Center will provide extended counseling and prevention services to siblings, clients 18 and younger, while still supporting the family unit.

”We were getting so many child referrals that we realized that we needed to give them a safe environment of their own,” Crowder said. “A place where they were comfortable to come in and wait for their appointments, and just be around other youth. We offer counseling and case management for the families to help children deal with the social emotional issues they may be having, and self-regulation.”

Crowder said the new Children’s Center expands on the peer support and case management needed to resolve the societal issues today’s kids face.

“During COVID-19, we found a lot of kids were having issues with depression and anxiety,” she said. “With that came concerns about how they had increased suicidal ideation. It’s not just about dealing with the drugs that are already there, it’s helping them deal with the life issues that they’re facing and learning to cope so they don’t turn to drugs in the future.”

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., was at the ribbon cutting. She said the addition to the facility was made possible through securing a $1.6 million Congressionally Directed Spending (CDS) request that included funding for the project.

Capito said Lily’s Place hasn’t just helped hundreds of NAS babies survive, but set a template of medical help being developed in communities nationwide.

“They are saying this works in my neighborhood, this works in my state,” she said. “This works for the great advocates to try to fight a very, very difficult issue.”

Capito said developing the Children’s Center sets a new template, having raised a teenage daughter herself.

“It’s not easy to be a 13-year-old girl, and it’s getting harder with all the social media and everything,” Capito said. “To have all of the disruptions and unbelievable trauma in your life that piles on when somebody is affected with addiction just makes it so much harder. So, to have that ability for them to come in to meet you all, to receive services, both individually or as a whole, or with their parents or with their family is just so incredible.”

Crowder said even with the new Children’s Center, it always comes back to the babies.

“We’re also trying to see a future where we no longer need to care for babies,” Crowder said. “When there are no more babies born prenatally exposed. However, with that you can’t miss the prevention piece and caring for the siblings and the families.”

Click here for more information on Lily’s Place and its services.

Marital Consent Discussed During Legislative Interim Meetings

Monongalia County Prosecuting Attorney Perri Jo DeChristopher appeared Monday before lawmakers in the Joint Standing Committee on the Judiciary to ask the legislative body to reconsider Senate Bill 498.

SB498, first introduced in 2021, aims to remove an exemption from the state’s definition of sexual contact which, according to DeChristopher, excuses many forms of marital rape.

“A 2003 study found that 24 states and the District of Columbia have abolished marital immunity for sexual offences,” De Christpher said. “Twenty-six states within our country retain marital immunity in one form or another. We in West Virginia are among those 26 states.”

During questioning, Sen. Robert Karnes, R-Randolph, purported that intimacy is part of the contractual agreement of marriage under law.

“There is something of an implied contract there that there’s going to be certain benefits to being married. I don’t think very many people would get married if they thought it wasn’t going to work that way,” Karnes said. “You’re citing one section of code, but you mentioned before that this is actually sprinkled throughout our code. You’re saying there’s nowhere in any of our code that would not require the scenario that I’m saying you could still touch your wife or your wife can touch you any way they want. Until you say no.”

DeChristopher responded that it isn’t quite that cut and dried.

“There’s lots of reasons and there’s lots of ways for a victim to convey their lack of consent to some type of sexual touching or sexual intercourse without actually saying the word no,” she said.

Sarah Blevins is the development director for Branches, a domestic violence center in Huntington. To clarify consent, she said married and unmarried people should have the same rights.

“Well, obviously as an advocate, to me, it doesn’t make a difference what the person’s circumstances are,” Blevins said. “Everyone has the right to have their consent validated, to have their preferences heard. As far as I’m concerned, it is a problem for both unmarried and married folks. We need to be looking at it with equal treatment.”

Blevins said conversations devaluing a victim’s experience could have a negative impact on survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

“One of the real dangers of when we start parsing out what consent is or isn’t, is that we invalidate survivors’ stories and voices, and that can have a super detrimental effect on their willingness to report on their willingness to seek services,” Blevins said. “We want to be very aware of that when we’re talking about consent.”

Blevins asserted that consent is not a constant assumption and that there is a continuum of consent while building any relationship.

“It’s really important for us to educate our community about what consent is and what it isn’t,” she said. “There is a whole continuum of consent, and if you are trying to build a healthy relationship with someone, it should be a priority for you to seek their consent in your interactions with them.”

During the session Karnes questioned the concept of consent within a marriage and suggested the state add a section to marriage licenses, asking couples to agree to being touched by their spouse.

To this suggestion, DeChristopher responded, “I don’t think you can consent to be the victim of a crime in perpetuity.”

W.Va. Higher Ed Counselors Asking For Help In Mental Health Crisis

West Virginia college counselors are overwhelmed and asking for support from the state legislature. “The counseling center staff are weary, there's no question about it,” Dr. Hawkins said. “Because we’re operating as if we are in a psychiatric emergency room.”

West Virginia college counselors are overwhelmed and asking for support from the state legislature.

Dr. T. Anne Hawkins, director of the West Virginia University (WVU) Carruth Counseling Center, gave a presentation Sunday on mental health in higher education to the Joint Standing Committee on Education.

“College counseling centers, around the state and around the country, are one of the most popular places on the campus,” Hawkins told lawmakers. “And they have been for the last 10 years. We increasingly are seeing more and more students.”

From 2010 to 2020, Hawkins said there was a “dramatic increase” in depression and anxiety amongst West Virginia college students. She noted, however, there was a decline in substance use during that time.

Hawkins said since the start of the pandemic, WVU’s crisis intervention went up by 36 percent. WVU, on average, provides almost 500 counseling sessions a week to students.

“This year, we will have served about 10.7 percent of the student population,” Hawkins said. “This is pretty tremendous. Thirty percent of our clients, our students, report self injury, 31 percent report suicidal thoughts, and 13 percent report a previous suicide attempt. Think about that – 13 percent.”

Hawkins told lawmakers she is “very concerned” about the nature of mental health in college students today.

“The counseling center staff are weary, there’s no question about it,” she said. “Because we’re operating as if we are in a psychiatric emergency room.”

Hawkins recently conducted a survey with some of the state’s college and university counseling centers. She said across the state, counseling center directors want to see more clinicians placed throughout the state.

She urged lawmakers to come up with incentive programs – similar to the state’s nursing and teaching programs – to get more clinicians to stay in West Virginia, receive good pay, and be placed in both K-12 and college institutions to help with the growing need.

“The focus should be decreasing stigma, enhancing and expanding digital and mental health services. We’ve got to work upstream. We’ve got to increase connection and a sense of belonging,” Hawkins said. “We’ve drifted off course, and that was beginning before the pandemic. We’ve got to create a culture that values well being.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports in 2020, suicide among people ages 10-14 and 25-34 was the second leading cause of death in the nation. That same year, for people ages 10-64, it was among the top nine leading causes of death.

The CDC also reports nationwide, the average anxiety severity scores increased 13 percent from Aug. to Dec. 2020 and then decreased 26.8 percent from Dec. 2020 to June 2021. Similar increases and decreases occurred in depression severity scores, according to the CDC.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for help.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Mental Health Counselor Discusses One Year Of Pandemic

The world is one-year into the COVID-19 pandemic. It has taken a toll on mental health, as four in 10 adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders in 2020, up from one in 10 in 2019, according to a U.S. Census survey.

Our Inside Appalachia co-host Caitlin Tan interviewed Carol Smith, a professor of counseling at Marshall University. Smith said that this past year has been tough on a lot of people — regardless of major tragedy or not.

***Editor’s Note: The following has been lightly edited for clarity.

Carol Smith: It’s completely normal to feel fried, bored, burned out. You know, feeling antsy, all of those things. Yeah, they’re all completely completely normal. Sit with the feeling. What is it telling you? What is it telling you about your situation? And if you want to, you can create some sort of ritual that expresses that sense of yearning or longing. And go ahead and indulge that for a few minutes, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time indulging that because that can just make you sadder. I would spend time just saying okay, “Yep, we all feel burned out. Guess what? Everybody does. This situation is difficult. We’re gonna keep pressing forward.”

Caitlin Tan: And do you think it’s an important time to reserve judgment and be less critical of oneself and perhaps others? As we’re all just kind of doing the best we can right now.

Smith: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I even say this to myself, sometimes. Just, you know, be gentle with yourself. It’s okay.

Tan: And do you think once our world does return to more of a sense of normalcy — like the majority of people are vaccinated and things are opened back up — there could still be some carryover of mental health issues that we suffered from?

Smith: Things are not going to automatically go away, because some things changed, irrevocably, during COVID-19. People have had loved ones die. People have lost their jobs or even their careers. People have been made homeless. There have been an awful lot of losses. And we’ve had to stay really cooped up for a really long time. Difficult situations have become more difficult.

I think we will do our best when we dig down into our mountaineer roots. I know that we’re all doing the best we can — we pull together and we’re compassionate towards one another. If we just give each other just a little more margin, a little more breathing space, a little more benefit of the doubt, and just have this sort of camaraderie or fellow feeling that we all got through this together. And isn’t that something good?

Tan: Yes, true. Can you offer any advice for those who maybe can’t afford counseling going forward, or are just looking for some kind of word of comfort?

Smith: I would just say, “You know, sweetie, maybe it’s been a really bad year, let’s just face it. It’s been really, really hard.” And go easy on yourself. Watch what you say to yourself. Try and say good things and encouraging things to yourself. Maybe temper your expectations of other people, understanding that they, too, are also really stressed. And again, just realize we’re going to take this one step at a time — we’re going to get back to normal.

Here’s just one other small piece of advice: understand what interpersonal boundaries are all about. Interpersonal boundaries are where I end and you begin — you shouldn’t feel like you have to fix all the problems of everyone around you. Let them take charge of their own problems; you attend to your problems and you all work together. So interpersonal boundaries are a really good thing. If you’re not familiar with that phrase you can go and look it up online and start reading about it. But interpersonal boundaries are a really important thing.

The other thing is margins — schedule some margins in your life. Don’t schedule things back-to-back-to-back and tasks back-to-back-to-back. Provide some margins in your life — margins between tasks, margins between different roles and even a margin in your own brain between whatever is provoking you at a moment and then your response to whatever’s provoking. You’re in the moment, and if you can just stick a tiny little margin in between what provoked you and how you respond to that provocation that’ll save you a lot of mental stress in the long run.

If you or a loved one need to talk to a mental health professional, call the national Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

WVU Telepsychiatry Program Expands Services

West Virginia University’s Telepsychiatry Program received a $1.2 million grant this week from the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand telemedicine services in four West Virginia counties.

Through videoconferencing, psychiatric and pediatric specialists at WVU are able to provide behavioral health, obesity, diabetes, asthma and oral health services to underserved areas of West Virginia.

Currently, members of the WVU Telepsychiatry team serves thousands of residents in 17 West Virginia counties.

With the new money, the program will collaborate with rural school-based health centers in Barbour, McDowell and Pocahontas counties and a community-based organization, Power House, in Wyoming County.

According to a press release, school-based health clinics are “natural partners for telepsychiatry treatment, because they often serve as the hub of health care and social services for rural communities.”

The program hopes to improve detection of students at high risk for behavioral and mental health problems. It also aims to determine the prevalence of oral health issues, asthma, obesity and type 2 diabetes in students using the telepsychiatric consultation services.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Benedum Foundation.

Texting: Is it the Key to a Better College Transition?

We use text messaging for a variety of things; to chat with family and friends, to check-in with a coworker, or send a photo, but what about for academics?

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission has been a pioneer in helping to develop a national text message counseling program that helps first-time college students transition more easily into college life. This year, that program goes statewide.

Jada Kuhn is 18 years-old and a 2016 graduate of Winfield High School in Putnam County. This fall is her first semester at Shepherd University, but she says she’s not as nervous about college as maybe some of her peers. Why? Last fall, her high school encouraged her to sign up for a text message counseling program through the state’s higher education system.

“The text messaging service just seemed really convenient for me,” Kuhn said, “and it didn’t really seem like I had to put in any effort, and they would take care of what I needed to know.”

The text messaging service is for high school seniors (however, anyone who is a first-year college student can sign up, so non-traditional students are also welcome to the program) and works like this – once a student signs up, their number is stored in a database with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. Students receive automated reminders at various times of the year to make sure they have been applying to colleges, signed up for orientation with their school of choice, and of course, to apply for federal financial aid. During that student’s first year of college, those reminders continue.

But the automated system isn’t actually fully automated. If a student texts back, he or she will more than likely hear from a real person at either the WV HEPC or their chosen university.

How to Sign Up:

Visit cfwv.com
Scroll near the bottom of the ‘Home’ page, and click ‘Sign up to get college tips…”
Fill out your information, and you’re set!

“If I would respond to a text, they would respond back,” Kuhn explained, “there was a time where I needed to know what kind of school supplies to get for college, because you feel like, okay I need to get the same thing for high school, but you don’t really know, cause you’ve never been here, so I sent and I asked what kind of school supplies I should get, and they sent a list of what I should buy for maybe my first week of college just to be a little prepared.”
Shepherd University has between 300 and 400 students who are signed up for the text messaging service. But only one counselor at the university is assigned to respond to students’ questions and concerns.

Julia Flocco is that counselor.

She says at first she was hesitant about signing-on to do the program, but she says the response blew her away.

“I was really surprised at first, because I was like, there are students who are really texting. Like, some students were talking about their fears, things they’re nervous about, tips about time management, like, I’m nervous about – can I get to class on time, how does an online class work, and I’m like, they’re really like, talking and opening up,” she said.

Flocco receives the students’ text messages through an online system that works like email for her, but comes through like a text message for the students.

In total, there are about 15-20 text message counselors at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. At the state’s university partners, there are 1-2 counselors depending on the size of the school.

The brain behind the national text messaging program is Ben Castleman, Assistant Professor of Education and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Castleman started developing the project in 2012 as part of his graduate dissertation after noticing students benefited from some additional college counseling the summer after their senior year.

Castleman spoke with West Virginia Public Broadcasting via Skype.

“What we also found though is that counselors were having to spend a lot of time just getting in touch with students,” Castleman noted, “Phone calls were going unanswered, emails would bounce back. Once they were able to connect, the students typically were very grateful for the interaction and the advice they got from the counselors.”

This gave him the idea that text messages might work better than an email blast – especially with the current generation entering college.

“We thought text messaging could be an effective way to both provide them with information, but also make it easy for them to connect to one-on-one assistance if they needed help,” he said.

West Virginia was one of the first states to work closely with Castleman on the initiative back in 2012.

When the program began, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission texted about 900 students at 14 high schools. On the college level, only Concord, Bluefield, Marshall, and Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College were involved.

“So that first year, we’re just now starting to get the sort of evaluation completed from that first group,” said Jessica Kennedy, the Director of Communications and Outreach at the WV HEPC, “and we did see some really promising results in terms of students being more likely to persist [in college] if they received the text messages, and they also did a little better academically than their peers who didn’t receive the text messages. So we’re hoping that we’ll see that continue because we’ve expanded the program.”

This year, all high schools in West Virginia are part of the program with 8 college partners. All-in-all, about 9,000 students have already signed up.