Tuttleman experiences high demand for services due to staffing issues
Written By Jocelyn Hockaday | Edits and Contributions By The Temple News Staff
As demand for Tuttleman Counseling Services increases, students may be referred to outside services.
Tuttleman Counseling Services is experiencing an “exceptionally” high demand for student appointments due to staffing issues, leading to possible referrals to outside resources, said Andrew Lee, the director of Tuttleman Counseling Services.
“We don’t have unlimited services, and we don’t have unlimited staff,” Lee said.
Since the start of the Spring 2022 semester, the center has received a wide range of requests for appointments, overwhelming its small team of counselors.
“Even if our overall enrollment numbers [at Temple] go down, our demand for services continues to rise,” Lee said.
The demand for counseling services has increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with one in five college students nationwide reporting the pandemic “significantly worsened” their mental health. In the Philadelphia area, nearly two in five college students reported experiencing anxiety throughout the pandemic, while more than a third experienced depression, according to a report from the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice.
With the high demand, Tuttleman lacks the capacity to see every student requesting an appointment and recommends using its referral database to quickly access mental health services. To use the referral database, students fill out a referral application and receive a personalized list of external resources in the Philadelphia area that Tuttleman recommends they use.
Tuttleman increased the number of initial consultation appointments it offers as a way of improving the accessibility of its services, Lee said. Consultation appointments are part of the referral program, intended to determine if Tuttleman’s services are the best fit for addressing a student’s needs.
“After we meet with the student and really understand their needs, we decide if we are the best place to be able to manage those needs,” Lee said. “It's really an individualized decision between the counselor and the student about what will best meet the needs of the student at that point in time.”
Some students are frustrated with only receiving a referral after their consultation with their counselor.
“It took so much for me to just contact them that they just handed me a piece of paper and be like, ‘we can't do anything here, call these people’ like that really, really hurt,” said Sinh Taylor, a junior English and gender sexuality and women's studies major.
The number of students referred to outside services remains low, despite the steady increase in requests for TCS from students, Lee said.
Tuttleman services only are intended to provide 6-8 session options before students are referred to other long-term services.
Daijsha Green, a freshman recreation therapy major, was surprised to be offered only short-term counseling sessions. Tuttleman told her it was because there were so many other students trying to use their resources at the time.
“I was able to schedule a service, but it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for at the moment,” Green said.
Green hopes Temple will expand Tuttleman’s resources because not everyone can afford external mental health services. In the United States, a single therapy session can cost between $100 and $200 but may fluctuate depending on the counselor and whether the person seeking therapy has health insurance, according to Psychology Today.
Temple regularly evaluates how often students use and need Tuttleman when assessing the center’s budget and resources, including the number of counselors, wrote Stephen Orbanek, a university spokesperson, in a statement to The Temple News.
“The operating budget for TCS will be reviewed later this year in the ordinary planning process for fiscal year 2022-23,” Orbanek wrote.
Even as demand for appointments increases, Tuttleman notes it has improved the wait time for appointments from multiple weeks to just one, Lee said.
Lee also developed a student advisory board for Tuttleman in December 2021 to increase student input in the center’s operations. The board is still solidifying its structure.
Lee explains that the student advisory board is necessary to better understand what students want out of Tuttleman and what purpose it will serve to the Temple community.
”Given that we serve the Temple University student community, it is vital for TCS to understand the needs of the students and their thoughts as to what is most useful in addressing those needs,”Lee wrote. Thus, the need for student voices and advocacy. I believe it is important to hear directly from students their views as to how TCS can best serve and assist them.”
Students feel that requesting an appointment with Tuttleman counseling services is perceived incorrectly and wish Tuttleman administration could be clearer on how students can go about starting counseling at Tuttleman
“I really wish in general people wouldn't make it seem like you can just walk in there and make an appointment and have someone to talk to,” Taylor said.
This story is unpublished through The Temple News.
