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VOL.21 | #2 | 10.1.2019

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Below is the national suicide prevention hotline. The last four digits, 8255, spell out “TALK.” But the biggest issue surrounding mental health is getting people to talk about it. That’s why this special mental health issue looks at how students view mental health — from their struggles with it to FAU’s efforts to improve it.

1-800-273-TALK

SPECIAL MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE

VOL.21 | #2 | 10.1.2019

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UP STAFF SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR

KRISTEN GRAU

SPECIAL ISSUE DESIGNER

IVAN BENAVIDES

EDITOR IN CHIEF

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CAMEREN BOATNER

MADISON BORGEL

MANAGING EDITOR

CONTRIBUTORS

KRISTEN GRAU

DANIEL SANCHEZ KENNEDY MCKINNEY

NEWS EDITOR

ISRAEL FONTOURA

ADVISERS

SPORTS EDITOR

NEIL SANTANIELLO ILENE PRUSHER MICHAEL KORETZKY

ZACHARY WEINBERGER

EDITOR'S LETTER

NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION MONTH IN REVIEW September was National Suicide Prevention Month — which is why we’ve dedicated an entire issue to mental health.

PHOTO EDITOR

ALEX LISCIO

By KRISTEN GRAU WANT TO JOIN THE UP? Email: universitypress@gmail.com Staff meetings every Friday at 2 p.m.

Student Union, Rm 214 WANT TO PLACE AN AD? For national/regional ads contact: Piper Jackson-Sevy flytedesk inc.

(970) 541-0894 piper@flytedesk.com PUBLISHER FAU Student Government The opinions expressed by the UP are not necessarily those of the student body, Student Government or FAU. ADDRESS 777 Glades Road Student Union, Room 214 Boca Raton, FL 33431 (561) 297-2960

COVER PHOTO BY ALEX LISCIO

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L

Photo by Alex Liscio AST SUMMER, I reported an obituary about Sydney Aiello,

an FAU freshman and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School alumni who died by suicide.

National media outlets speculated the trauma of the shooting made her do it. They were wrong — she left school early that day. They speculated it was because her best friend, Meadow Pollack, was killed that day. Wrong again. Suicide is never about one thing.

It’s more complex than that, and that’s why we’re doing this issue.

Mental health struggles are alarmingly present on college campuses. One in three college students have reported their mental illness, according to the American Psychological Association. That means out of FAU’s 30,000 students, around 10,000 are affected by conditions like depression, anxiety, and panic disorder.

We don’t pretend this issue of the paper will rid FAU students of suicidal thoughts. What we do know is this: the UP influences what students talk about when these papers get into your hands. If we can get students, staff and faculty to start talking openly about mental health more often, then

ABOUT THE COVER: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has an official campaign ribbon that is purple and teal, which is why you’ll see those colors throughout the issue. A semicolon “;” is used to symbolize suicide prevention because it’s where a sentence could have ended, but didn’t.

It’s both a popular tattoo and powerful symbol used to represent people choosing to continue their life instead of ending it.

KNOW THE WARNING SIGNS If someone you know is exhibiting these signs, they may be thinking about suicide. These points come from ReportingOnSuicide.org, an organization that partners with journalists, doctors and advocacy groups to help media cover suicide accurately and ethically. ∆∆Talking about wanting to die ∆∆Looking for a way to kill oneself ∆∆ Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose ∆∆ Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain ∆∆ Talking about being a burden to others ∆∆ Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs ∆∆ Acting anxious, agitated or recklessly ∆∆Sleeping too little or too much ∆∆Withdrawing or feeling isolated ∆∆ Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge ∆∆Displaying extreme mood swings

hopefully some of those 10,000 students will realize it’s OK to reach out for help.

In this issue, you’ll find that if you end up getting Baker Acted at FAU, or involuntarily taken to a mental health facility, that experience in itself can be traumatizing (page 12) — and that resident assistants often resent the job due to the stress (page 8). Counseling and Psychological Services is on campus to help, but their staffing falls short compared to national standards (page 4).

You’ll also find out why FAU Athletics is launching a few mental health awareness initiatives (page 6), and some of what FAU’s mental health researchers are studying (page 3).

There are plenty of resources on campus — but they can’t help you if you don’t reach out to them. I know suicide isn’t easy to talk about.

But if it’s not talked about, the consequences are literally deadly.

UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

MONEY

More and more researchers are focusing on mental health — including ones at FAU. Here are the projects they’ve spent millions on this year.

Danesh attempts to prove that mental health is important, and that it is especially vital having someone for support. Danesh feels that his research may provide many students with a “revised perception of suicidal thoughts.”

“I want to have a healthy community,” Danesh said. “Unlike other types of health issues, mental health is not obvious.”

ON THE MIND

By DANIEL SANCHEZ

L

EARNING about mental health is a priority for FAU

researchers — so much so that almost $2 million have been dedicated toward related projects.

FAU dedicated millions to the construction and research of the Brain Institute, which studies all aspects of human intelligence.

In 2019, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) dedicated approximately $1.9 million to FAU for research funding both psychology and neuroscience. Researchers at FAU have a variety of goals, motives, and studies they’re working on to learn more about mental health, as around one in four college students are diagnosed with mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

PARENTING AND POOR HEARING Another project by Brain Institute researcher Ali Danesh focuses on the relationship between parents’ mental illness and their children’s hearing impairment. His research is split up into three different projects:

• Danesh is investigating the relationship between parents’ mental health in childhood and anxiety and depression for patients with hearing conditions.

This research concludes that audiologists (doctors who study hearing) rehabilitating patients should screen them for parents’ mental illness, as this would indicate that further mental health services are needed.

• Throughout his studies, Danesh explores the correlation between parental separation/mental health in childhood and hearing impairment in adulthood.

Danesh found that separation, which leads to poor parental mental health, was associated with increased sensitivity to sound in their kids.

• Danesh’s research showed that physicians who offer hearing rehab should screen for suicidal thoughts in patients.

MIND OVER BODY? Many people already assume that your mental health is related to your physical health, but FAU researchers are trying to quantify it by looking at the serotonin levels in your brain.

An FAU research project studies the connection between the immune system and mental illness. The researchers observed that the moods, energy, and initiative of sick people was diminished, the same symptoms of depression. The researchers later uncovered that serotonin transporters, signals between the brain and the rest of your body that determines your mood, played a major role in this connection.

Brain Institute Executive Director Randy Blakely said the goal is not only to improve the wellbeing of the community, through medicinal solutions to depression, but to facilitate advances in research.

For Nicole Baganz, another Brain Institute researcher, it aims to bring awareness to mental health. This issue is one close to her heart, with her sister having passed away due to a heroin overdose. She says she wants to “reduce the stigma of mental illness and spread accurate information into the world.”

CATS, KIDS, AND CELLS Alaina Tillman is a senior undergraduate researcher in Blakely’s lab at the Brain Institute.

Tillman investigates how brain cells can respond to the inflammation caused by infections and sickness. She sees this as a unique window into mood disorders by tapping into the immune system and figuring out how to defend against influences that could cause depression.

Tillman is using her research to remove the stigma toward mental health, and possibly help in producing a medication to treat depression.

Maranda Streit is a postgraduate nurse practitioner (FNP-BC) completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice from FAU in December.

Maranda is working on a project for children with anxiety using HeartMath, a breathing technique children use to help with anxiety.

She says the results have been promising, according to the responses of the children and their parents.

She hopes to recommend her treatment to pediatric offices and schools as an alternative to putting children on anxiety medications.

Bryanna Streit is a post-graduate nurse practitioner completing her Doctor of Nursing Program from FAU in December.

Bryanna works at FAU’s Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing’s Louis and Anne Green Center using toy interactive robotic cats to test a method of reducing aggressive behaviors and troublesome psychological symptoms of people with dementia. The cats provide companionship, much like an emotional support animal, which is meant to soothe the patient’s nerves.

Bryanna is interested in this topic because her grandmother had a similar issue and she wants to pursue non-invasive methods instead of medications and other treatments. Bryanna hopes adult day centers, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities will implement her findings.

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:1 2,013 That’s the ratio of full-time equivalent clinical staff to FAU students at the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) office. An international organization says that ratio might increase wait times and make counselors less available.

By ISRAEL FONTOURA Photos by Alex Liscio

CAPS DIRECTOR KATHRYN KOMINARS

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UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

T

HE state organization that oversees

higher-education said FAU’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) counselor-tostudent ratio was too low. FAU improved for next year, but only by one.

In 2017, The Florida Board of Governors determined CAPS’ ratio was one counselor for every 2,014 students. This year that ratio got better, but not in the way the BOG projected.

The ratio is now one counselor for every 2,013 students, but two years ago, the ratio was projected to be one counselor for every 1,017 students.

The International Association of Counseling Services (IACS) recommends a range of 1,000 to 1,500 students per counselor. IACS’ website says when an institution exceeds the recommended ratio, they risk the students’ academic success, higher wait times, and inability to treat more severe psychological issues.

CAPS Director Kathryn Kominars explained that the ratio doesn’t necessarily mean that each counselor sees 2,013 students — it’s a high number because of FAU’s nearly 30,000 students, and not all of them use CAPS. “A ratio can overstate or understate the capacity of an institution, a lot depends upon how much the student body knows about the services, and how much they actually utilize those services,” Kominars said.

Each of CAPS’ 25 full-time equivalent staff may see anywhere from 100 to 150 students a year, and the center itself sees around 3,000 students per year, according to Kominars.

More students are using counseling services around the country than ever before. From Fall 2009 to Spring 2015, the percentage of students utilizing counseling centers increased by 30 to 40 percent, according to Penn State University’s Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) 2018 report.

“The severity of distress has increased. The number of students who have been willing to come for counseling has increased. The people’s self-assessment of how well they’re functioning, in terms of their mental health has decreased,” said Kominars.

At the University of Florida, wait times can extend to two weeks, according to Duke University researchers. While at the University of North Florida, students have reported waiting up to three weeks to get an initial appointment.

However, Kominars says the wait time is based on the student’s availability.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT CAPS Seeking help at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) may be daunting for people who don’t know what the whole process is like. Here’s what using CAPS’ short-term therapy model typically looks like.

Walking into CAPS, a student’s mental health journey begins with an iPad. At the front desk, students are handed the device and are prompted to fill out a series of questions evaluating their mental health. With every tap of a stylus pen, the information is fed to their individual counselors who evaluate a student’s presenting concerns.

Students fill out a survey which provides clinicians with information on trends and symptoms throughout sessions.

“We have more people here, providing a variety of services, whether it’s counseling, or outreach, or consultation, that a ratio of students to staff members doesn’t capture,” said Kominars.

CAPS isn’t the only mental health resource for students. Last Fall, Student Government introduced PEP Talk (Psychoeducational Programming) that connects CAPS, SG, and the student body.

“One of the things that’s wonderful about PEP Talk is it’s about helping students get help sooner,” Kominars said.

PEP Talk, led by Director Rachelle SaintLouis, works to destigmatize mental health by talking to students in a way that educates them, and helps them understand those with mental illnesses. The program collaborates with other clubs and organizations for discussion panels and film screenings.

As a liaison between CAPS, SG, and the student body, Saint-Louis doesn’t have a staff of 25 clinicians. She’s doing it all on her own, for now.

PEP Talk was created in Fall 2018 but things didn’t run so smooth, according to Saint-Louis.

So as the new director, she’s working to amp

All records and information at CAPS are highly confidential and separate from all other university records. Any recorded information about your appointments at CAPS will not be part of your academic record, according to their website.

Session times are brief, running up to an hour, and focus on resolving people’s major presenting concerns.

However, there’s no session limits in a semester.

If CAPS decides your mental illness is more advanced than they’re equipped to handle, they may refer you to another healthcare provider.

“We try to match what is a good fit for the students’ needs with what kind of provider or treatment setting is going to be really helpful. We don’t want people to [have] the sense that they’re getting bounced around,” Kominars said.

up the program with tabling and events with student organizations. Her goal through these events is to destigmatize mental health.

“We’re especially targeting the stigmatized communities ... so that we can have this conversation, and just let students know that they are not alone in this,” said Saint-Louis.

You don’t have to be distressed or have a condition to seek counseling services.

According to a study by University of South Florida researchers, male college students, Asian college students, and STEM students particularly struggle with mental health literacy and report not seeking help.

“Not everybody who feels anxious has an anxiety disorder. But what we know is when people don’t know how to manage low levels of stress and anxiety, that tends to multiply over time,” said Kominars.

She adds that being away from home, navigating the college social environment and lack of sleep among college students all can lead to a symptom increase in depression and anxiety.

Clinicians from 152 institutions assessed that anxiety and depression were the highest primary concern among students, according to a 2018 Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) report.

Anxiety and depression concerns were noted in approximately 62 percent and 50 percent of students, respectively, in the 2017-2018 academic year.

“One of the things that’s really helpful about the collaboration between CAPS and Student Government [is] to create more opportunities for people to have access, and to understand that seeking help is a smart thing, it’s a good thing, it’s a healthy thing,” said Kominars.

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KICKING STIGMA OFF THE FIELD

FAU punter Sebastian Riella called out stigma surrounding mental health of student athletes on Twitter. FAU noticed — and is now working to raise more awareness.

By KENNEDY MCKINNEY Photo by Alex Liscio

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I

T WAS THE DAY before FAU punter

Sebastian Riella’s last game during his senior year of high school.

He was in class, when all of a sudden he felt as if his vision was sinking into his head. He said his body had lost control of itself and all he could hear was his heart beat racing throughout his whole body.

His first thought was that he was having a heart attack. But after his mom rushed him to the hospital, he was diagnosed with two mental illnesses: anxiety and derealization disorder, or recurring out-of-body sensations.

“I felt as if I was watching my life unfold through a movie, like I was standing behind a glass and watching every little thing I did. I remember looking at my hands and feeling as if I wasn’t real. I thought I was alone. Days with this turned into months of a constant battle of what to me seemed like I was in a dream and I was just waiting to wake up,” Riella said.

Since high school, Riella has been an advocate for raising mental health awareness among FAU student-athletes. In July, Riella tweeted about wanting to end the stigma surrounding mental illness for student-athletes — and after, FAU launched new mental health programs for them.

“College teams need to start implementing mental health classes into their programs. Lots of guys come from messed up backgrounds and don’t know how to cope with certain things.

Not only will it help now, but in the future. Just a thought,” he tweeted.

Riella wanted to voice his opinion because of the stress that school and football season brings.

“I knew I wasn’t the only one going through that. I know what it’s like with teammates and having people around,” he told the University Press.

He admits he didn’t think anyone would notice the tweet. But it caught the attention of Jessica Poole, a spokesperson for FAU Athletics.

“This is a great suggestion @SebastianRiella.

Please let us know how @FAUAthletics can help you be the very best on and off the field!”

Poole responded.

The next month, FAU Athletics announced at a back to school event for student athletes where they will start having mental health seminars once a month to support students.

Guest speakers and psychologists will talk to athletes about ways to cope with stress, how to alleviate the pressure that comes with being a student-athlete, and other mental healthrelated topics.

Riella said he suspects his tweet may have had

UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

some influence on the decision, since he met with Poole after that to discuss some future mental health ideas.

Poole said that each year the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), a group of two student-athletes from each team and acts as a liaison between the teams and Athletics administration, comes up with goals each year.

This year, mental health awareness is one of their primary goals. One initiative that’s still in its planning stages is the idea of “green games,” where the football team encourages fans to wear green in solidarity for this with mental illness.

FAU Athletics will also be encouraging people to wear green on Thursday Oct. 10 to support Mental Health Awareness Day. Riella feels there’s a stigma attached to speaking out about mental or personal problems. “It’s perceived as a sign that an athlete was weak or unfit to play”, he said. But he believes that stigma is slowly going away.

“The stigma surrounding athletes is changing with how vocal athletes are being [with] just about everything — not just mental health, but with their beliefs. I feel like social media has opened up a realm in a way that we didn’t have before to speak our minds,” he said.

Riella noted that there is more of a burden put on college athletes in comparison to regular students. Because of this, he said, mental health should be prioritized.

“They say you’re a student athlete but in reality they always see you as an athlete, they don’t see you as a person. They just see you as what you’re seen as on social media or on TV,” he said.

He meets with Dr. Raphi Wald, the football team’s designated psychologist, when he feels his stress levels are high.

“I’ve been talking to [Wald] every weekend.

He’s amazing. He’s really helped me just calm the nerves of everything that’s going on around you because we live in a chaotic world and it’s easy to implode,” he said.

Football players can see Wald by appointment and simply tell their trainer what’s going on and they are free to meet with Wald.

Wald says that student athletes are “programmed” from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep.

“Between conditioning, practice, travel, study hall, games, treatment, and team meetings, they barely have a moment to breathe. This creates an opportunity for a lot more stress, anxiety, and other psychological problems to arise,” said Wald.

He sees about 25 athletes a week. Some just for quick 15-minute check ins and other

full sessions which last 45 to 50 minutes. He also has informal conversations with student athletes and coaches and talk to teams in small groups.

Wald believes that FAU has done a great job acknowledging the need for mental health services for student athletes but believes more can be done.

“As a psychologist with a bias toward mental health, I always believe there is more that can be done at any institution. As time goes on and there is less and less of a stigma attached to mental health problems, more and more people seek help rather than suffering quietly,” Wald said.

Over 40 million adults in the U.S., or 19.1 percent, have an anxiety disorder which leads to panic attacks, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Up to 75 percent of people in the U.S. experience at least one derealization episode in their lives — like Riella did his senior year — meaning they persistently or repeatedly have the feeling that they are observing themselves from outside their body or have a sense that things around them aren’t real, according to the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI).

“The best thing that my therapist has told me is that although you may feel like you may have a certain illness or like you’re dying, you know that you’re not. You know that you’ve gone through these same symptoms and that nothing has happened so just know, at the end of the day, you will be okay,” Riella said.

Top athletes in all sports have spoken up about ways to help and destigmatize mental health. In 2016, Michael Phelps opened up about his battle with depression to Sports Illustrated. And in August, Andrew Luck, a quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, retired from the NFL because he felt “mentally worn down,” according to ESPN. Riella’s days are busy, with practice beginning at 6 a.m. and ending at noon, but the next few hours are filled with classes, meetings with professors, studying, and homework.

This leaves little time for him to focus on himself, but Riella still tries to find a way to detach himself from his stress.

“When I’m in football, I’m in football. When I’m in class, I’m in class, and when I’m by myself, I’m by myself. I’m not an athlete, I’m not a student, I’m just Sebastian. I’m just a normal human,” he - Sebastian Riella said.

“They say you’re a student athlete but in reality they always see you as an athlete, they don’t see you as a person.

They just see you as what you’re seen as on social media or on TV.”

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BEHIND CLOSED DORMS Resident assistants (RAs) at FAU receive free meal plans, half-priced housing, and an hourly pay of $13. But many former RAs say the stress of being on the job 24/7 outweighs the benefits and affects their mental health.

By KRISTEN GRAU

Photo by Alex Liscio

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UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

O

N ANDREW ARCHIBALD’S first

day as a resident assistant in Spring 2017, he woke up at 4:30 a.m. to a phone call. It was the front desk at Innovation Village Apartments (IVA) telling him ambulances arrived.

Archibald said his job was to “make sure nothing else terrible happened.”

The first terrible thing: A student’s heart condition flared up downstairs.

He went to the student’s dorm. There were paramedics swarming the room and a stretcher in the hallway. He wasn’t allowed inside the room — so he just recorded what happened and talked to paramedics. Archibald went back to his room feeling “powerless” just as the sun was coming up at around 7 a.m.

“You see this kid in possibly serious pain and you can’t really do anything about it ... But it is hard,” he said. “You look out for people and when you’re an RA, you’re in the business of making sure people are happy. And if they’re not happy ... it can get to you.”

The student ended up OK, but Archibald wasn’t after his unnerving first day. That’s when he realized his job would be more demanding than he’d imagined.

Resident assistants are students assigned to one floor of every residence hall, either by themselves or in pairs. Depending on the building, RAs can oversee as many as 90 students. They’re the ones you can find decorating their halls or inspecting rooms for drugs and alcohol — but their jobs are often more complicated than that.

Many former RAs have stories similar to Archibald’s. They may not be of residents’ hearts giving out, but they’re other highpressure situations like breaking up fights at 4 a.m. or handling a suicide in the building.

With those circumstances on top of their heavy workload and full-time class schedule, many RAs have said the job was taxing on their mental health. But when some couldn’t afford to live on-campus without the salary and housing discount, they were stuck.

RAS ‘HAVE TO KEEP THE SHIP FROM SINKING’ RAs have a wide range of responsibilities.

They can be menial ones, like changing the floor’s decorations, or replacing keys that don’t work. Or they can respond to emergencies like Archibald’s.

Two other residential life members who aren’t undergraduate students are meant to help with these tasks in the building: a full-time residence coordinator and a part-time graduate assistant (assistant residence coordinator). But some

semesters, there are no residence coordinators in certain buildings, some RAs said — which gives the RAs more responsibilities.

Jayde Cowan was in that situation during her time at Indian River Towers. She was an RA for three years starting from 2016.

About halfway through one of her years, her building’s residence coordinator left — leaving only a graduate student as her supervisor.

“That put a strain on the RAs because the RAs had nobody to talk to. The pro staff [residence coordinators] are the only people we can really talk to as far as issues within the position,” Cowan said, “so the RAs have to keep the ship from sinking.”

According to Larry Faerman, FAU’s interim vice president of Student Affairs who currently oversees housing, residential life’s department is currently full — meaning there’s a residence coordinator and a graduate student working each building. Faerman acknowledged there were residence coordinators that left the university, which created vacancies, between August 2018 and June 2019. He also said it was “not uncommon” for those full-time positions to be filled for only one to three years.

However, there’s currently no official director of housing, only an interim one. Once the university hires one, that will make three housing directors in the same number of years.

Olivia, whose name has been changed to protect her identity as she is still affiliated with the university, was in a similar situation. She was an RA at the IVA complex for a year, starting in 2017. Because of the high number of residents living at IVA, there are two RAs per floor. Her partner quit, so she was left to look after the whole floor herself — which forced her to solve intense problems on her own.

- Jayde Cowan At 4 a.m. one morning, she said she responded to a situation in her building where a woman’s boyfriend locked her out of her room. Neither her residence coordinator or the assistant residence coordinator were able to assist her, according to Olivia, so she jumped into that conflict alone.

Had another resident assistant been there, she said she would have been more comfortable.

“It just always felt like everything was resident, resident, resident. But what about the resident assistant?”

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

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Amy Timmerman, an assistant residential coordinator for Heritage Park Towers, has experienced working in a building with no full-time residence coordinator, and said she had to handle the workload of a full-time staff member.

The job was “more intense than what I had originally pictured,” Timmerman said. “So when you think of grad school, you think of the grad school work and then your assistantship [housing work] on top of it. And a lot of times we joke … when people ask me about school, I think work immediately, because it doesn’t really come to mind first.”

When there are vacancies, “It’s like having a TA [teaching assistant] but no professor,” said Cowan.

‘WHAT ABOUT THE RESIDENT ASSISTANT?’ This year, FAU recognized how stressed RAs can get. So Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) launched an RA-specific support group last Spring semester.

“This program was initiated over the past 12 months to assist student staff in addressing some of the fatigue that can occur when assisting resident students with whom they live,” said Faerman. “Living where one works creates a space in which one is never able to be ‘off duty.’”

RAs couldn’t say much about the contents of the talks because of strict confidentiality rules, but Cowan said it was a much-needed outlet for RAs. “It was the first time I’ve had working in three years that I’ve ever had a chance to talk about my mental health or my care,” she said.

“Yeah, we could have always gone to CAPS, but we’re not looking out for us because we don’t have the time to do that. It just always felt like everything was resident, resident, resident. But what about the resident assistant?”

Brittany Mead was an RA for a year starting in 2017, but said she knew early on in the job she wouldn’t be applying again the next year — despite the financial support it brings.

She worked in Algonquin Hall, but RAs there oversaw students both on their floor and assisted with Heritage Park Towers. In total, she was in charge of about 100 students, she said. So one of the most stressful parts of her job was completing Owl Chats.

Owl Chats are mandatory check-ins with every resident, every two weeks. (Two weeks was the typical deadline, but it varied.)

Archibald said this effort came in Spring 2017 when housing was looking for qualitative ways to measure residents’ housing experiences.

RAs have to track down all their residents and

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talk to them about their grades, finances and mental health, among other things — then log onto Owl Central and record everything they talked about.

If RAs failed to meet that deadline, they were subject to being written up.

“It’s hard to create that many relationships that go past saying, ‘Hey, OK, bye,’” Mead said.

“You can’t sit down with 100 people. That was stressful because on top of your schoolwork deadlines, you had to meet these deadlines.”

Archibald, who was an RA for two and a half years, was under the impression that RAs were supposed to bond with their residents organically, not through mandated conversations.

Completing Owl Chats “was really difficult, because you have to fill out individual forms for every single one of those [residents],” he said.

“And doing that several times over is really difficult when, you know, you’re a full time student — you’ve got to take care of literally your entire life, and also be a resident assistant beyond putting in forms.”

Mead admitted she felt she had no choice but to fabricate many of her Owl Chats to keep up with her many other responsibilities.

“The job wasn’t worth it. The pay wasn’t worth it. The stress wasn’t worth it,” she said.

She decided not to apply again after her yearlong contract ended partly because working the “24/7 job” worsened her existing anxiety struggles. The range of resident situations she handled — from physical conflicts to mental breakdowns — felt out of her scope, particularly the latter.

“I would have people come into my room crying [while] talking about their roommate situation. One time I had one of my residents come in and he opened up about how he was feeling depressed and he was having a lot of anxiety … I didn’t feel comfortable dealing with that on my own,” Mead said.

LIVING WHERE YOU WORK RAs are in a unique situation. They’re not full-time employees. Their on-call shifts, which means they’re the main RA in charge of their building, on weekdays are 12 hours, and 24 hours long on weekends — but part of their job is tending to their residents at any hour.

One of Olivia’s worst days as an RA wasn’t during a traditional workday, it was a Saturday.

Saturdays at IVA during home football games were always hectic for RAs. She was on-call when FAU played their home opener in 2017. RAs on-call at IVA, the apartments next to FAU Stadium, are required to check everybody into the building and check their IDs. Home football games typically start

no later than 6:30 p.m., but Olivia had to work that day much later than even the players did.

“I had so many incident reports to write [that day] that I was awake until 7 a.m. without a wink of sleep,” she said, “because I was working.”

Olivia said she wasn’t allowed to disclose the specifics of those cases, but said they were related to drugs, violence and alcohol.

For Olivia, “It just got to the point where I was consistently just considering quitting,” she said.

“And then it becomes a situation where you feel pressured to not be able to quit, because your housing is contingent on it.”

Housing has upped the RAs’ pay from $10.50 per hour for only 15 hours a week from last year to what it is now: $13 an hour for 20 hours a week.

Cowan was an RA before and after the pay increase, and she said that their responsibilities and tasks increased along with their pay. She said she found ways, after getting used to the job for three years, to cope with the stress.

“If there’s anything I learned from this job, it’s that I have to maintain boundaries,” she said, “and protect my mental health before my job.”

She said she always had to be ready to jump into a situation — and in 2016, one of those situations was a resident’s suicide.

During Fall 2016 in Indian River Towers, she was waiting in the lobby to talk to her friend who was working the front desk that day. They went upstairs briefly to let in the person who was there to fix the dorms’ WiFi. When they came back downstairs, she told Cowan they had seen a body in the room.

So Cowan — on a day she wasn’t on-call — called the police, and stayed at IRT for seven hours until the body was carried out on the stretcher at 9 p.m. to make sure nobody was entering the building. Her supervisor told her she could leave, but she wanted to stay and help since other RAs were unavailable. “[It was] very, very stressful. You have to be on your toes for something like that,” Cowan said, recalling that day. “If you’re a regular resident, you can ask questions, you can be curious, but you go about your day. But as an RA, I cannot ignore it. I’m an official. I have to do something about it. So I have to take on that extra pressure.”

Neither Cowan nor Archibald expected their job would involve seeing students out on stretchers. But they did — and because they lived where they worked, there was no time to unwind.

“If you’re working, you have a bad day at work, you can’t really escape that,” he said. “You walk to your room, and that’s all your escapism is.

It’s just that door.”

UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

ASSISTANTS’ ADVICE Though these three graduates aren’t resident assistants anymore, they still know what they’d like to see housing staff do to improve current RAs’ mental health.

Jayde Cowan, Olivia, and Brittany Mead all worked in different buildings — but experienced many of the same struggles unique to RAs. Here’s what they each had to say about improvements they would have liked to see in the position that may have reduced their stress during the job: COWAN’S TIP ∆∆ADVERTISE THE POSITION HONESTLY. “They make the RA conditions look really fun and nice and everything. But in reality, when you’re actually working the position, you get more work than you signed up for.”

OLIVIA’S TIP ∆∆ BE MINDFUL OF RAS’ OUTSIDE RESPONSIBILITIES. “I think that housing needs to be more accountable for the amount of not just classes that students have, but [also] the amount of time they have in between the amount of breaks they have. They really shove in work every single minute and then the RAs aren’t getting any breaks on top of everything else … if you’re on call you could have a full night of sleep or nobody could give you any issues. Or, you can be up all night with really severe, high-pressure situations.”

MEAD’S TIP ∆∆ ASK HOW RAS ARE DOING MORE OFTEN. “[Our supervisors] could have spent more time checking in with us seeing how we were doing instead of, ‘How are your residents doing?’ That’s important, too, but … you’re going through us, ask us first.

‘How are you dealing with 100 residents?’ not, ‘How are all of your residents doing?’”

EVERY AMERICAN WASTES 290 POUNDS OF FOOD A YEAR

PHYSICAL RESTRAINT MENTAL CONSEQUENCES FAU is one of many police agencies that use handcuffs when taking people to the hospital involuntarily for mental health checks. The irony is experts say it does more harm to their mental health than it does good.

By CAMEREN BOATNER Photo by Alex Liscio

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UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

S

AM WALKED in for his appointment at FAU’s Counseling and

Psychological Services in 2016. He didn’t expect to be escorted out in handcuffs, and patted down on Diversity Way in front of passing students. He’s not a thief, or a murderer, or a criminal of any kind.

The now 21-year-old student with schizophrenia was just talking to his therapist.

“They took me out to Diversity Way in handcuffs which was awkward because if I saw one of my professors or my boss, that just doesn’t look good,” Sam said. “No one sees someone in handcuffs and thinks ‘they probably have mental health issues.’ They probably thought I was a criminal.”

Sam was involuntarily taken to a hospital to be examined by mental health professionals under a law called the Baker Act. He made an off-handed comment regarding suicidal thoughts to his therapist, who thought he needed to be evaluated. When FAUPD showed up, they put Sam in handcuffs — something experts say many other police organizations do as well.

The use of handcuffs during a Baker Act is up to the individual law enforcement agencies, according to Lawrence Meltzer, a criminal trial lawyer in Palm Beach County who also takes Baker Act cases.

But Susan Stefan, a nationally accredited lawyer from Florida who has specialized in mental health law for 36 years, says it’s a “perennial problem,” and potentially “traumatizing” to a student. The Baker Act states that handcuffs and other restraints should not be used on people with mental illness except as “an emergency safety measure to be used in response to imminent danger to the client or others.”

FAU spokesperson Joshua Glanzer said, “In all cases where transportation to a treatment facility is being performed by an FAU police officer, the individual requiring transport will be restrained for their own safety and for the safety of the officer.”

Stefan confirmed that many law enforcement agencies’ policies are similar to FAU’s, stating police have a “blanket policy” of handcuffing anyone they transport.

We spoke to Fort Lauderdale Police Dept., who says officers “may” use handcuffs. Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office’s policy is to use handcuffs on noncriminal mentally ill people when they are violent, which is determined by the officer. We also requested Boca Police and Broward Sheriff’s Office’s Baker Act policies, but have not received a response as of publication time.

Stefan says that although the use of handcuffs is a problem during a Baker Act, attempts to challenge it in court have failed. She says the problem isn’t even the handcuffs. It’s the police themselves.

“The problem is the use of police in psychiatric crises in the first place,” Stefan said.

- Sam Similar to Sam, Sarah says she wasn’t a threat to herself or others when she mentioned suicidal thoughts, but FAU police applied the Baker Act to her case too.

Sarah walked into the Victim Services office at The Wimberly Library to view the findings of a rape complaint she filed against FAU quarterback Chris Robison, but wound up handcuffed in the back of a police car.

She says although she wasn’t surprised to read that FAU cleared Robison, she still cried. When her victim advocate, FAU’s point-person for crime victims, asked if she contemplated suicide, she said that while the thought crossed her mind in the past, she never acted upon it, and never had a plan or any desire to kill herself.

Editor’s note: Sarah and Sam’s names have been changed to protect their privacy.

“No one sees someone in handcuffs and thinks ‘they probably have mental health issues.’ They probably thought I was a criminal.”

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

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“I kinda made a joke out of it, I said ‘if I haven’t done anything since the rape, I’m not going to do something now. If I was going to kill myself, I would’ve done it months ago,’” Sarah said.

Still, her victim advocate called FAU police, who took her to a psychiatric facility for a 24hour stay among the mentally ill.

“That was pretty much the worst day of my life. It was almost worse than the rape because at least with the rape I don’t fully remember it. But this was like being raped all over again.

100 percent, it was worse for my mental health than if it never even happened in the first place,” Sarah said.

Sarah said she was alarmed when they put the handcuffs on her, but police told her it was their protocol.

“A university, of all places, should have protocols in place for sexual assault victims that do not involve the use of police,” Stefan said.

But Stefan says using handcuffs during a Baker Act when the client is a sexual assault victim can be damaging.

“Think of being sexually assaulted, losing control over your body, and then being handcuffed, again losing control over your body.

It is retraumatizing and haunts many young women for years,” Stefan said.

INSIDE A BAKER ACT Sarah says she wasn’t violent, didn’t resist the police, and actually thought it was a good idea after they told her she’d be going to see a psychiatrist. But she thought she was just going to FAU’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS).

Things turned unpleasant when police cuffed her and took her to South County Mental Healthcare Center in Delray. The worst part, Sarah said, was FAUPD didn’t tell her what was going on. She had to learn that she was involuntarily hospitalized, pursuant to the Baker Act, from a nurse at the mental health facility.

The nurse wanted Sarah to take off her clothes and shower, and only when Sarah tried to explain that she was just there to speak with a psychiatrist and leave, did she learn what was actually happening.

“She said, ‘Sweetie, you’re here under the Baker Act,’ and I said ‘What the heck is that?’ and she told me. An employee at the mental hospital had to explain to me what the heck happened,” Sarah said.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT FAUPD transported Sam to South County.

There, he was evaluated, and a psychiatrist decided he needed to stay in inpatient care for about a week, he said. Sam maintains his experience there was worse for his mental health.

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Sarah said she had the same experience — her mental health suffered more as a result of her Baker Act. “I was sad throughout this whole thing, but I’ve never felt worse than when I was in that facility.

I haven’t felt anything like that in my entire life.

You’re so alone,” Sarah said.

A study from researchers at the University of South Florida found that out of the 7,128 suicides in Florida from 2004 to 2006, 16 percent of those people had involuntary examinations under the Baker Act. Among those on Medicare, the stats were even worse. There were 474 Medicare enrollees who died by suicide during those years, and 41 percent of them were Baker Acted. If you’re on Medicare and have been Baker Acted in the past year, you’re three times more likely to kill yourself than someone who hasn’t been involuntarily examined, the study says.

“The only thing they can handle is keeping the weapon out of your hands at that moment.

They don’t give you any reason not to off yourself afterward,” Sam said.

The Baker Act might actually discourage students from disclosing their suicidal thoughts to therapists, Sam said. He felt like a criminal during his Baker Act at FAU, and said the use of handcuffs didn’t help his case.

“Unless the person is truly homicidal or hitting themselves, or hurting themselves, I think then it makes sense to restrain them in some form,” Sam said. “But when someone is scared and uncomfortable, and then they get handcuffed, it doesn’t add to the feeling of being in need of help as a patient, it just makes you feel like a crazy criminal.”

IT’S ALL SUBJECTIVE Regarding Sarah’s case, Meltzer said, “Rather than looking at that as an abuse, look at it from a police standpoint. Is it terrible for someone who’s going through something like this young lady?

Yes. But there’s that balance there. What are police supposed to do if that’s their procedure? If it’s protocol for them to handcuff someone being transported, so be it.”

He said the Baker Act itself is also, sometimes, a grey area. In the police’s eyes, especially at FAU, Meltzer said there is a liability in letting someone with suicidal thoughts go instead of Baker Acting them.

“For me to say whether that Baker Act was right, wrong, indifferent is very nebulous. That’s because it all comes down to the officer,” he said.

“Do I think sometimes officers unintentionally take things too far? Sometimes. But then they have to think, ‘Should I let this go?’ And if they did let it go, God forbid she went through with it.”

‘WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?’ Sarah didn’t know what the Baker Act was until it happened to her.

Here’s a simple explanation of Florida’s mental health law.

The Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, better known as the Baker Act, lets people with mental illnesses be held against their will for a mental health check, called an examination, for up to 72 hours.

Law enforcement, mental health professionals, doctors, and judges can all decide whether someone should be Baker Acted, based on a few criteria, according to Florida statutes:

∫ T here’s reason to believe the person is mentally ill

∫ T hey refused voluntary examination, or can’t determine whether it’s necessary

∫ T hey’ll hurt themselves or others if they aren’t Baker Acted, based on recent behavior

After the maximum 72 hours, if the trained mental health professional says you’re no longer dangerous, you’ll be released. If the mental health professional thinks you need to stay longer, and you don’t consent, they’ll have to file a petition to keep you at the hospital involuntarily, or release you.

The Baker Act is named after Maxine Baker, the state representative who sponsored the act before it was passed. The act reformed previous mental health laws that lacked due process for people with mental illnesses.

Before the Baker Act, anyone could be committed if three people said they should, and got approved by a judge — there wasn’t even a limit on how long they’d be held. The Baker Act is specific to Florida, but other states have their own involuntary commitment laws.

UNIVERSITY PRESS // OCTOBER 1, 2019

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