USU Health and Wellness Center adds position to oversee counseling, mental health services
Scott DeBerard, a professor in the psychology department at Utah State University, was chosen this week to fill the new position created to integrate services provided by Utah State’s Counseling and Psychological Services and the Student Health and Wellness Center.
“We were looking for a candidate that had both an understanding of counseling and therapy, but that also understood the medical world,” Utah State Student Affairs Vice President James Morales said. “And certainly, he has that background.”
Morales said beyond his background, DeBerard has the demeanor to bring people together and help connect their visions, interests and goals.
“I have a couple of goals that I am hoping to achieve quickly. First, is to improve coordination and communication between student health and the counseling center,” DeBerard said. “Secondly, I’m very hopeful to improve both access and the amount of mental health services for students on campus.”
The idea for the new position began developing a couple of years ago when Morales and his colleagues looked at the different models that other universities had.
“There were a number of different models. Some had fully integrated counseling and health centers under one umbrella. Others had varying levels of integration and some were completely separate,” Morales said. “Those that had the integrated models seemed to be leveraging all their resources to support students a little better than those that were separate.”
Morales said he wanted to create the synergy that the integrated schools had.
“Each department is already doing great work,” Morales said. “So, the point was not to try to improve their performance individually, but rather bring them together and by virtue of bringing them together help them optimize what they are each doing in a much more holistic, coordinated, integrated way.”
@AutumnMarilyn