Health & wellness
BY COLE GEE
Lone Star College’s chief mental health o cer, Shantha Stokes, discusses her role, new initiatives
on how to support students in the classroom ... what we know about college mental health is that you’ll never be able to hire enough clinicians to meet the need. So mental health really has to become a campuswide or systemwide e ort. What initiatives does Lone Star College have to prioritize faculty and student mental health? Lone Star does provide counseling services to its students. It’s just on a smaller scale. With the addition of the team that I’m hiring, we will be able to triple the amount of counselors that are available to students in our system. Currently, we have faculty counselors who pro- vide brief intervention services for our students. We also have a behavior intervention team that works to triage students who might be presenting observable problems. ... We also ... provide wellness education, wellness fairs, suicide prevention training.
In June, Lone Star College System hired Shantha Stokes as its new chief mental health o cer. In an interview, Stokes re ected on her responsibilities and discussed mental health initiatives. What are your responsibilities as Lone Star College’s chief mental health o cer? Lone Star has functioned with outsourcing its mental health services for the most part. So one of the main goals ... is to help create in-house mental health services and to enhance our existing services. I am building infrastructure so that we’ll be able to provide those services. ... I am also onboarding an electronic health record so that we can digitize our mental health records. I am also hiring a team of licensed mental health professionals to provide direct services ... that will include one-on-one services as well as group ther- apy services. In addition to training faculty and sta
Shantha Stokes is the associate vice chancellor of mental health and wellness and chief mental health o cer.
COURTESY LONE STAR COLLEGE SYSTEM
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For a longer version, visit communityimpact.com .
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CONROE MONTGOMERY EDITION
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