Student Affairs

Center for Collegiate Mental Health offers continuing education programming

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) at Penn State is offering continuing education programs for professionals in higher education as part of its expanding outreach efforts.

The CCMH team and its National Advisory Board members developed a two-part pilot for the current academic year to provide live educational programs on collegiate mental health topics to the broader global community of helping professionals within higher education. The programs highlight important research findings from CCMH and implications for helping college students, according to CCMH Executive Director Brett Scofield.

CCMH has historically completed an annual report and more recently offered monthly blogs to disseminate findings about collegiate mental health, Scofield said. The current programming was created to increase the center’s scope and impact, he said.

The first program, which was conducted in Nov. 2021 by Jeffrey A. Hayes, Penn State professor of education, covered suicide prevention and saw nearly 1,400 professionals attend nationally and internationally. Thus far, over 2,700 professionals have registered for the second program, titled “Raced-Based Traumatic Stress and Healing: A Treatment Roadmap for Helping Professionals.”

This program will be held from noon to 2 p.m. on April 26 via live webcast. Speakers will include Natalie Hernandez DePalma, senior director of Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), a unit of Student Affairs; Sultan Aquil Nafis Magruder, diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator at CAPS; and John Robert Mitchell, assessment coordinator at CAPS. Register for the event here and view the program flyer for more information.

“The Center for Collegiate Mental Health is proud to offer this crucial training on Race-Based Traumatic Stress and Healing to Penn State and the broader global community of helping professionals within higher education,” Scofield said. “Those who attend the program will learn about the prevalence of racial discrimination in the U.S. and higher education settings, the effects of race-based trauma, and strategies to effectively support impacted students.”

Housed at Penn State, the CCMH is an international practice-research network of nearly 700 colleges and universities focused on understanding and describing college student mental health. CCMH collects and analyzes de-identified data as part of the routine practice of students seeking mental health treatment from colleges and universities. The information is used, in turn, to connect clinical practice, research, and technology, which benefits college counseling centers, students receiving services, mental health providers, administrators, researchers, and the public.

To receive updates on any new findings, follow CCMH on Twitter at @ccmh_psu.

Last Updated April 19, 2022