Seven years ago, I was practicing privately seeing mainly high school and college-aged young people in my office to help them with many of their difficulties. Toward the end of that summer I had 12 students that I had been working with for several years getting ready to leave and go off to college. Everything in their lives was about to change, so I wondered how can I help. I offered to see them through video calls to offer support to each of them. I felt this would assist them with the transition. Each of patients agreed and we made appointments before they left. I naively thought I would see each of them for a few sessions and then hand them off to a huge counseling center with many qualified counselors waiting to see them.
I researched this some and became aware that what I would be doing was called coaching. I would be supporting them with this newness they were about to experience and helping them solve things that came up along the way. As I continued working with them through September I noticed each of my students progressing and very much looking forward to our call. I then requested that each of them go to their schools counseling center and make an appointment to see one of the schools counselors.
After a full month of asking, providing phone numbers, emails and even a map of where the counseling centers were located on campus, I was only able to get 5 of my 12 students to attempt to go. The others were too frightened and ‘did not want to start over with someone new’. Of the 5 that went they were met with a 3-4 weeks wait, a counselor grad student who ‘was only a few years older than me’, a different counselor each time or a limit of 3 visits per semester. Due to all of these reasons all 12 students strongly requested to continue to see me. I saw each of them weekly all year by video sessions. They progressed amazingly. Making new friends, learning ways to reach out, balancing academic and putting the correct amount of time in, and participating in many different extracurricular activities. It was amazing to watch! I was witness to these students evolving and making the transition into college magnificently.
Toward the end of the year, it occurred to me that I had discovered a new way I could help students. I spent a lot of time over that summer naming and beginning to organize this new business.
During the next several school years I began seeing many students. Some began with me in person and then transitioned to school, while others began while at school. I began to notice a trend of some students who were not receiving help and would often suffer in silence. Those students would come home after a semester hurting in many ways. They would have very low GPA’s and their emotional health often was not good. U ARE HEARD assisted those students to get ‘back on their feet’ and believe in themselves again. Through this process, I began to recognize the important of proactiveness with students. It is so important to recognize the signs of struggle as they are starting. U ARE HEARD is the solution for many of those students. We assist them to reduce the struggle and increase the confidence and results.
This past year I decided to hire some coaches to help more students. I sifted through many resumes I and was able to pick out some amazing all stars with just the right background to work with this population. Some coaches and some therapists. Different ages, experiences, specialties and expertise. They are located all over the US. Many of them work part time on college campuses currently.
I then created a comprehensive training library online for my contractors to learn about my style I use online while also leaving room for their skill set as well.
U ARE HEARD is currently helping many students and wanting to assist many more. We offer a wide range of coaches to help a wide range of students.
U ARE HEARD addresses a large problem that exists nationally. The excessive anxiety and depressive rates of college students nationally is at an all time high.
One large reason for this is that most students graduate HS with relatively no idea of what will be coming next. The students think they know and are therefore surprised when they encounter difficulty.
Students simply are given more stress than they can handle. They do not know how to relieve this stress so they simply just continue to take it in, leading to a very overwhelmed feeling. This trend leads to high levels of anxiety and depression.
In general HS does not do a good job of preparing the students for what college life may be like. There are a lot of surprises to the student that lead to a huge amount of depressive and anxiety symptoms.
College is expensive and as a result, families put pressure on their student to succeed and succeed efficiently so they can handle the bills incurred. This pressure is always in the background for the students.
Communal living is hard. No student I have ever met has lived with multiple roommates in HS or 50-75 other people on their hallways at home. Shared bathrooms as well as the amount of people around and lack of privacy are all big changes that pose challenge.
Many staff increase stress with students by talking about next steps while the student is trying to adjust. Last year I had many students tell me they were exposed to conversations in their classes by their professors about graduate school while they were adjusting to freshman year first semester. This simply overwhelms the student and makes them feel behind. It increases anxiety as they are trying to get adjusted to a tremendous amount of new things.
How to talk to new people and make friends, how to reach out and connect formally with social groups on campus, how to balance my academics and how much do I need to work each day on this, and when will it all come together are all topics that students try to deal with their freshmen year. Unfortunately, the drop out / transfer rate is super high nationally (about 1 in 3 students) which says to me there needs to be more prep before and more support during this critical juncture in a young person’s world.
It is for all of these reasons I started U ARE HEARD. I want students concerns to BE HEARD. No more suffering in silence with overwhelming amounts of low self-worth connected to failures. U ARE HEARD can impact new student transition and student struggle by supporting them and giving them some direction. Not so they just get through, but actually thrive and grow.
U ARE HEARD is the SOLUTION to students needing assistance while away at school.
So why does U ARE HEARD work so well?
It is effective, easy to use, and supportive. This mode of help is innovative. Students and adults all know there are counselors on campus to assist them. Many students won’t go to the counseling center due to fear of being stigmatized by others or feeling weird or odd going themselves. Many have tried to go with low success. Appointments can often be given weeks out when a student wants to be seen right away. Many students don’t realize how overwhelmed they really are. Grades are only one way to ‘measure’ this. Students and families must work together to watch for the signs and symptoms of unhappiness. Depression and anxiety are statistically overwhelming in college students these days.
U ARE HEARD is super easy to set up. Most new students come from a free 10 min consult set up online. Paperwork is emailed and from this consult we set up an intake and then match them with the best coach for them. We have completed this process as quickly as 24 hours.
For each session the student is given a link (which is the same one used each time they meet)---they simply type that into their address bar and sign their first name in. That’s it!
Next thing they know their coach appears on their screen. We cut through all of the reasons students don’t seek help. U ARE HEARD is designed to make getting help easy.
U ARE HEARD is the solution and the way assistance can be offered to students in the future. It allows the busy college student to maintain their schedule. Many students will go to a 9am class, see me at 10 am, then go off to their 11 am class. It is simple. Support made simple. We bring the support to them and therefore it is used. Otherwise, many students ignore needing help and their problems only get worse.
We have an amazing new staff of coaches and counselors on our website. Check out their bios and see which may be the right coach for you. Check them out at www.uareheard.com
Click the link below to BE HEARD. We want to help students who need help. Reach out to us and we will assist you with this process.
Are you a parent who gets a lot of their information about parenting online, from friends or family members? Do you worry when your kids are at college how they are doing emotionally, academically or socially?
Then U ARE HEARD is for you. It is easy to set up and use and fits within a busy college students lifestyle. It allows your student to avoid the pitfalls of extreme anxiety and depression while at school. It creates a safety net which keeps your students from falling while away from home. It helps maintain a balance of academic and social fun. And most of all it gives parents peace of mind there is a professional connecting regularly with their student to help them ‘get to the finish line’ and be happy doing it.
Please visit our website at www.uareheard.com
Click the link below to BE HEARD
https://www.uareheard.com/schedule-an-appointment/
