Alpha Tau Omega National Fraternity is making steps to take mental health issues on campuses into their own hands.
The fraternity announced that they are offering their 10,000 members across the United States access to the free therapy app, Talkspace.
Talkspace is a way for people to connect to therapist via text message 24 hours a day without making an appointment, dealing with a wait and can be done through the privacy of their own personal phone.
Brad Prosch, the president of Alpha Tau Omega, said that the council presidents for IFC get together on a monthly basis to listen to various speakers.
“The guys from the Health and Wellness office, are regular attendees at our meetings so they are always giving us new information of QPR training, for suicide prevention or ways we can get information to our chapters so they can get the health that they need,” Prosch said.
Prosch said that Sororities and Fraternities need to continue to build that relationship with the Health and Wellness office.
“It is a sensitive subject and feel like a lot of people in Greek life might be hesitant to go to the health and wellness office because it might spin that negative light on Greek life, but if we continue to meet up and build that relationship we can see health and wellness become a big thing in the Greek community,” Prosch said.
Eric Smith, the director of Health Promotion and Wellness at Auburn University, said that their center has a team of outreach people who go out and give various talks about mental health issues to the Greek life community.
“One of the things to recognize, first and foremost, everybody has mental health and just being open to the fact that everyone’s mental health is unique to them,” Smith said. “On top of that, people may have mental illness that they may be working through and dealing with and I think just knowing that many people out their experience depression, many people experience anxiety, many people feel sad sometimes and people feel alone and isolated.”
Smith said that it is important to recognize that those feelings, to a certain degree, are normal and for many people it is just temporary and they are able to move forward and past them.
“Auburn University is considered one of the best places and happiest places so sometimes it can be tough for somebody who is not feeling as happy as everyone around them appears to be and just realizing its okay,” Smith said.
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