By Hailey Murphy
As a result of distrust between the Counseling Center and mental health advocates on campus, two student leaders in mental health are stepping away from the Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee. However, disagreements remain between the students involved.
Sarah Cederberg, president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) chapter on campus, sent out an email on Friday, February 23 announcing NAMI’s departure from the Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee.
This email, which outlined a number of grievances with the Counseling Center, was sent to Shari Robinson, director of the Counseling Center, and KaSandra Church, Western’s suicide prevention coordinator.
These grievances included students feeling voiceless on the Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee, a student feeling misled by Robison after pitching a suicide prevention training program and To Write Love on Her Arms being left to fund and plan the Walk of Hope event on their own.
“I feel very regretful and very grieved that three student leaders, that I thought we had a really good working relationship with, feel this kind of way,” Robinson said. “And I feel very grieved that the first time I heard about it was in this public email… I did not appreciate hearing it the first time this way. I don’t think that’s professional. I don’t think that’s respectful.”
The three students leaders are Cederberg, Douglas Van Druff, president of To Write Love on Her Arms, and Mary, a student advocate. Mary declined to comment and wished to only use her first name, but said in an email that Cederberg’s statement is “correct and truthful.”
Yet Van Druff, on behalf of himself and To Write Love On Her Arms, didn’t offer complete support to the email.
While he agreed with Sarah’s statement regarding student voices being snuffed on the committee, he felt the statement came from a “privileged” point of view, as the Counseling Center is underfunded. Additionally, he disagrees with Cederberg’s choice to voice her grievances over email, as well as the tone used in that email.
“Even if there are problems on our campus, Sarah’s way of addressing them is problematic and unhelpful,” Van Druff said in an email. “She doesn’t offer a silver-lining or any action plan moving forward, which makes the whole statement which she is criticizing the counseling center for seem very hypocritical. Her actions only further bridge the gap between students and the paraprofessional staff both in the Counseling Center, and on the Suicide Prevention Committee.”
Cederberg had this to say in response to Van Druff’s comment:
“Yes, the start of this was aggressive, but I didn’t want to get blown off or for these issues to be forgotten about by the Counseling Center…I’m not critiquing their services. I just want them to make their inner workings more transparent, and work towards offering more opportunities for student leaders and students in general to contribute to their conversations
Cederberg said that Mary and Van Druff worked with her on the statement. Van Druff’s recollection is that Cederberg sent them the statement “out of the blue” the same afternoon it was sent out, saying, “I’m being stupid, but tbh I’ve got 3 months left, so I would love to stir the shit a little.” Van Druff said that Mary and him didn’t personally contribute to the statement.
One grievance discussed in the statement was that NAMI’s relationship with the Counseling Center felt one-sided. NAMI and other student leaders would advocate for them, but the Counseling Center wouldn’t return the favor. This often became apparent during Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee meetings.
“We were basically… token student voices,” Cederberg said. “Frequently in meetings they would say, ‘Let’s hear from our student leaders,’ pointing us out, putting us on the spot whereas in the rest of the meetings, we couldn’t get a word in edgewise. In general, I don’t feel like anything I ever said had much of an impact on anyone’s thoughts.”
Van Druff also expressed that the voices of students were less impactful than those of professional staff. Additionally, due to conflicting class schedules, Van Druff has been unable to attend a single meeting this year.
“If the committee ‘valued’ the student voices as much as they say, it seems like they could make a priority of trying to schedule the meetings for times that work with us instead of professional staff, just my opinion,” Van Druff said.
This also became apparent for Cederberg when she tried to get the Counseling Center’s assistance in promoting NAMI’s Connection Recovery support group. According to Cederberg, it’s the only confidential drop in group on campus. Exclusive to students diagnosed with a mental illness, the group is run by a trained facilitator.
Robinson said couldn’t post the group directly on the Counseling Center webpage, as that would be endorsing the group and would put her license at risk. Cederberg did ask, however, that they refer students.
“In all honesty, I don’t think they’re doing that,” Cederberg said. “I don’t have proof of that, but just looking at the numbers for that support group, I don’t think they are. And looking at our survey we sent out, most people don’t know about it.”
Robinson disagrees.
“We have the big poster in our waiting room, we have some handbills, our counselors would refer students that they thought would be a good fit,” said Robinson. “We were promoting and supporting it that way which we would do for ADCAS groups, which we would do for other groups, but groups that we are not directly involved in providing treatment, we will not– and any counselor or attorney general would tell you– you can not take on that vicarious liability for it.”
Yet Cederberg doesn’t accept this a solid explanation.
“Let me point out that there is a community referral website run by the Counseling Center at Western, and at the top of it, it states: ‘We are also unable to endorse any particular provider that is listed,’” Cederberg said on the NAMI Facebook page, in response to a Western Front quote. “While I don’t believe local support groups should be coupled in with Counseling Center support groups, I think it would be worthwhile for the Counseling Center to have resources to community support groups, given that those support groups are drop-in friendly, where their groups are not.”
Another grievance mentioned in the email was a result of breakdowns in communication. In September 2016, according to Cederberg, Mary approached Robinson asking if she could facilitate LEARN training program on campus.
Developed by the University of Washington’s Forefront, LEARN is a suicide prevention training program, which Mary has trained to facilitate. Prior to the hiring of the suicide prevention coordinator, the only suicide prevention on campus was the online program Kognito.
“Immediately [LEARN] became of interest to Shari as it could potentially accompany the failing Kognito training modules,” Cederberg said in her statement. “This ultimately was just a run around between the Counseling Center and Mary, though. Instead of telling her outright that [Robinson] didn’t intend to utilize her training, [Robinson] asked for her to help with working on Healthy Minds Fair and other efforts, and when questioned about this, would brush it off.”
According to Cederberg’s account, it wasn’t until Spring 2017 that Mary was informed that she wouldn’t be facilitating LEARN training. She was informed not by Robinson, but by Church, the suicide prevention coordinator.
However, Robinson’s account is different than Mary’s.
“Mary was never informed that we were going with LEARN. Mary was informed that LEARN would be one of the programs that we would consider… I’m not sure what I said or did that led her to believe that,” Robinson said. She also said that she was sorry Mary felt misled, and that Mary wasn’t informed sooner that Western would be offering an alternate prevention program, QPR.
In response to the Western Front’s article on the situation, Mary commented on Facebook,
“Shari told me that she was definitely using the LEARN training as a supplement to Kognito, but of course that was a meeting between me and her so there is no way for me to provide proof… I’d also like to point out that I just wanted to present my training, like, one time in an empty classroom after school hours. Shari was the one who hyped it up. All that being said, I’m not surprised that Shari has an excuse for every single claim. Everyone is to blame but her (according to her).”
The final issue outlined in Cederberg’s statement was that, after the Counseling Center funded and planned the Walk of Hope event for a number of years, To Write Love on Her Arms was suddenly left to do that themselves. According to Cederberg, To Write Love on Her Arms had previously planned the event, but once Western received a grant to help further prevent suicide, they took over themselves.
After the grant was up, fundraising and planning was back into the hands of To Write Love on Her Arms.
“[TWLOHA] weren’t expecting tons of help, but given that [the Counseling Center] basically had been taken over the year before they didn’t expect that getting funding would be so difficult,” said Cederberg.
Cederberg was not directly involved with the Walk of Hope. She heard about the situation from Van Druff.
“Last year, BRAVE rebranded and the grant timeline was up so things did fall on myself and my other club officers to plan an event,” said Van Druff. “So to me, yes that wasn’t okay by any means but I quickly got over that and once [Church] was hired she was so supportive in planning the Walk of Hope this past fall.”
What Cederberg hopes is that her comments won’t be swept under the rug, and instead they’ll be a catalyst for change.
“I wanted them to have to confront it, and with Western’s behavior this far this year, it only seems to acknowledge it’s wrong doings when people have publicly ‘stirred up shit,’ or in general terms, ‘gotten it out to the public,’” said Cederberg.
Robinson said she will meet with Cederberg and leadership from the Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee next week to discuss the issues raised by Cederberg.
With the departures, Annie Gordon, ASVP for student life, is the only student currently serving on the committee.