Student Association Vice President Kyle Rosenblum will propose a texting-based peer listening service to the Syracuse University administration on Tuesday, he announced at Monday’s meeting.  

This service would provide an anonymous, non-crisis texting helpline available for use from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. This will be useful for students who want to seek help at hours when the Counseling Center is not open but don’t have someone to reach out to at night, Rosenblum said.  

The listeners would be a group of 25 to 30 volunteer undergraduates, with a ratio of one listener to 550 students, said Mackenzie Mertikas, co-chair of SA’s Health and Wellness committee and SA chief of staff. These students will receive more than 40 hours of training from licensed clinical psychologists and other professionals about on-campus resources, Rosenblum said.  

The service will be anonymous and confidential, unless the listener believes the person is a threat to themselves or others. While the service isn’t intended to be for crisis situations, volunteers will be trained to connect users to relevant emergency resources, Rosenblum said.  

He said he hopes this service will both help struggling students and encourage them to utilize on-campus mental health resources.  

“It would act as a way for students to be able to reach out or … get something off their chest,” Rosenblum said. “It’s supposed to help those students who wouldn’t otherwise go to the Counseling Center to go to the Counseling Center and use resources from the Office of Health Promotion.” 

Rosenblum is currently working on the specifics of the initiative with Mertikas. They hope to have a pilot version of this service available by fall 2019, and a full version by spring 2020, said Rosenblum.  

Ghufran Salih, SA’s president, said she believes this is a much-needed service on campus.  

“I am a huge believer in conversational support,” Salih said. “A lot of the time I find myself going to my friends and my peers rather than a counselor, because it’s very stigmatized. Having an anonymous service to be there for me is not judgmental, it’s comfortable.”  

Other Business:  

• Jalen Nash and Erin Mooney were voted in as co-Student Life chairs. Previous Student Life chair Noah Cyr resigned earlier this month.  

• David Fox, SA’s director of technology, proposed a Thrive@SU initiative called Trick or Treat with Tillie’s Touch, which will give children a safe place to celebrate Halloween in a local gymnasium. The funding, which would come from SA, will be voted on next week.

Published on October 22, 2018 at 11:51 pm

Contact Natalie: nrrubiol@syr.edu