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Student Development Planning Goal #5
2002-2006

1. What is a visionary goal that your unit set?

Promote the physical, emotional and social health of students

The primary goal of the Wellness Center is to assist students in maintaining a high level of wellness so that they might achieve their academic goals and incorporate healthy living patterns into their full lifespan.

Specific Goals for 2002-2004
In 2001 The Wellness Center was put under the direction of the Director of Health Services who had a long history of working in college health.  At that time a new focus was presented to Student Development.  That focus was centered on becoming more proactive in collaboration between emotional and physical health and developing programming that would embrace the wholeness of students.  Much of the plan was developed due to the long time professional association with the American College Health Association (ACHA) and knowledge of national trends for college health.  To that end the following goals were developed:

  1. Develop strong outreach program.
  2. Increase team approach to provision of services and programming.
  3. Increase diversity of staff
  4. Convert Peer counseling program to Peer Education program.
  5. Build stronger ties to PLNU community.
  6. Build stronger ties to the San Diego Community.
  7. Increase communication of services to students, staff and parents.

Specific Goals for 2004-06
With mental health issues on campus increasingly becoming more complex across the US Wellness Center staff met with SD staff to discuss creative ways of addressing these needs.  The Outreach programs had increased in size and attendance.  The ACHA NCHA (National College Health Assessment) report from 2003 showed that the 10 most common impediments to academic performance were all issues that the Wellness Center could address.  To that end the following goals have been established:

  1. Increase counseling presence and availability.
  2. Increase training for staff and faculty.
  3. Continue outreach programming addressing the issues found in the NCHA
  4. Continue the team approach
  5. Coordinate weekly wellness messages to produce a consitent and effective message.

2.  What information and data did you use to set these goals?

For the 2002-04 Goals

  1. Long term exposure to the professional standards and trends of the American College Health Association.
  2. CAS Standards (Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education)
  3. Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers.
  4. The History and Practice of College Health
  5. National College Health Assessment Data from the American College Health Association
  6. University ban on freshmen cars (freshmen not having easy access to medical care created a need to find ways of facilitating certain types of care on campus)
  7. Analysis of use of Wellness Center web site.

For the 2004-06 Goals

  1. College of the Overwhelmed by Kadison and Digeronimo (see reference at the end of this document), listserv discussions, college health networking discussions.
  2. Student surveys
  3. NCHA Data  (03-04)
  4. CAS Standards

3.  What actions did you take to try to reach this goal?

For the 2002-04 Goals

  1. Promoted Director of Health Services to Director of Wellness
  2. Added Director of Outreach Education
  3. Added additional physical health provider (Nurse Practitioner)
  4. Added additional counselors (diversified by adding male to all female staff)
  5. Added auxiliary professionals who could come to campus to provide fee for service opportunities for our students. (Eating Disorder/Registered Dietitian/Massage).
  6. Overhauled Peer Counselor program and changed into a Peer Educator program.
  7. Experimented with support groups of varying topics and times.
  8. Increased sophistication of website and trained department assistant to be webmaster.

For the 2004-06 Goals

  1. Began MFT internship program and in residence hall counselor program
  2. Increased outreach programming through established department networks (Spiritual Life, Residential Life, Nursing, Academic Support, etc.)
  3. Continued auxiliary professionals.
  4. Began to develop ties with academic support department.
  5. Participate in National Depression Screening Day.
  6. Plan to develop website to be useful to staff for their counseling of students.
  7. Continue professional development for all staff members so that all are informed of current college health issues.  Establish ties for new staff to professional organizations.
  8. Participation in Student Development Student Care Group for early alert planning.

4.  What progress did you make?

For the 2002-04 Goals

  1. New Peer Educator program is instituted.
  2. Auxiliary staff (eating disorder specialist, registered dietitian and massage therapist) utilized well.
  3. All staff highly utilized.
  4. Tighter ties with residential life and other student leadership students developed by staff of Res. Life, Spiritual Development and Wellness meeting on a regular basis.  Continuity of student to student care improved.
  5. Several staff members gave lectures in classrooms, participated in panel discussions
  6. Staff made visits to clinical sites off campus, community agencies.
  7. Wellness Wednesday outreach takes off providing timely wellness messages in the cafeteria.
  8. Department Assistant trained in website posting. (Analysis of usage showed high use)

For the 2004-06 Goals

  1. Increase in numbers of students contacted by outreach programming.
  2. Increase in numbers of students seen in counseling.
  3. Increase in use of collaborative planning.
  4. Increase in use of collaborative oversight of students in crisis.
  5. Increase in training Student Development staff and student staff in handing of students in crisis.
  6. All staff attended national ACHA meeting in San Diego.  4 to attend in 2006.  Attended several staff trainings within San Diego area as a total staff.
  7. Coordinated Wellness Wed. messages with advertising and bulletin board
  8. Weekly updating of web material.

5.  What information and data did you use to evaluate your progress?

For the 2002-04 Goals

  1. Student surveys
  2. Increase in student participation in Peer Educator program
  3. Numbers in attendance of outreach programming.
  4. Student interaction
  5. Student Evaluations

For the 2004-06 Goals

  1. Same as above.
  2. Increased gathering of data for annual report and refining standardized reporting throughout Student Development.

Submitted by Jean Benthien CRNP, MSN, Director of the Wellness Center, Point Loma Nazarene University, January 2006.

Supporting Documentation

Wellness Center Outreach Data
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Data