Habif Health and Wellness Center is exploring options to replace its phone triage system with a new patient intake protocol.

Under the current phone triage system, students seeking psychiatric services from Habif speak with a Mental Health Services staffer over the phone in order to assess the student’s needs before an in-person appointment is made.

Photo by Nathalie Austin

Habif is considering a change to an in-person screening where students are given “tools to help increase their mindfulness and manage their anxiety,” while they wait for their appointment, according to Speaker of the Senate junior Sophie Scott.

Scott says Habif hopes this will strengthen the relationship between potential student and counselor pairs, who will continue to meet after their screening interview.

SU Senate’s Improve WashU 2019 spring campaign report reveals that many students “expressed frustration with the long wait times and barriers for appointments, insensitive interactions with Habif Health and Wellness staff and lack of diversity among staff members.”

According to sophomore Senator Gaby Smith, Senate is working on a new project with Mental Health Services to address these concerns.

“Currently, Senate has been working with Habif to address the new patient intake protocol with the removal of the phone triage,” Smith said. “Senators Sophie Scott and Nkemjika Emenike have been running point on this project and are hoping to gather student feedback to help determine what the new protocol will be.”

Opinions on this new initiative are varied. Although certain students value the system of phone triage appointments, others question their effectiveness.

Freshman Nandini Jain has not yet used Mental Health Services but feels more inclined to use them, knowing that triage appointments are now an option.

“I think that being able to have a phone appointment is beneficial for students not only because of how much more convenient it makes getting the mental help you need, but also because it allows a student to be vulnerable and feel safe if they are not necessarily comfortable with talking to someone face to face,” Jain said.

Sophomore Jack Abbah currently uses Mental Health Services. He has had a good experience and sees little value in the phone triage program, believing it to be not as effective.

“Imagining my diagnostic interview over the phone, I don’t think it would be much different, but it would’ve also been weird not seeing a face,” Abbah said. “I feel like you can get the same result, but sitting down in a closed setting and talking you get to see my body language and expressions.”

Scott says Senate is currently gathering student opinions on the potential change so Senate can “make an informed recommendation to Habif.”

“We’ll be meeting with student groups to get their perspective, as well as a focus group of students who have actually accessed mental health services at Habif to hopefully understand a broad range of student perspectives on this change,” Scott said.