Student Support Network
Student Support Network
Check out this helpful information handbook put together by SSN members in collaboration with the SDCC!
Just a handful of the over 300 trained SSN members!
It's 3 AM. You're up late finding a few more sources for your group project when you notice the tab you've got Facebook open in is flashing. You click over and see your friend has sent you an instant message: "This is the worst night of my life. I've been crying for hours. I can't deal with this stupid life anymore." You want to respond quickly but you hesitate... what do you even say? What if the things you say only make it worse? What if your friend is thinking of... you don't even want to let your brain go there. You want to help, but you're just not sure how.
Is this scenario familiar? Change the details around as necessary, but most of us have been here or close enough to it at some point before. Most of us have felt that anxiety in the pit of our stomachs when we're concerned about a friend's mental or emotional well-being and maybe even their safety. How can you tell when things aren't right with your friend? How do you have that conversation with them? What if they need more help than you can provide? This is where the Student Support Network training comes in.
What is the Student Support Network?
The Student Support Network (SSN) training program is a 6-week series that covers those concerns mentioned above and more. Throughout the training, we discuss the nature of good mental and emotional health, warning signs that your friends may be struggling, ways to approach and talk to those friends, and resources that can provide more help and how to connect your friends with them. We go beyond just discussing though; SSN is an active experience involving visualizations and role playing as well. Talking to your friends about these things can be difficult, and listening and giving them the space to process what they're going through can be even more difficult. We want to help you practice and build the experience of doing just that so when it happens for real you'll be familiar with how it feels and can manage it and respond effectively.
What the Student Support Network isn't
SSN is NOT training to be a peer educator or peer counselor or anything like that. Beyond the 6 training sessions, you are not committed to any other activity or responsibility. The way we see it, you're already out there trying to support your friends. And while rewarding, we bet this is also probably very challenging sometimes - it can feel like you're in over your head. What we want to do is help you do what you're already doing. We want to provide you with the support you need to continue to be a good friend and provide appropriate support to the people you care about.
The goals of the Student Support Network
The main goal of the program is to expand and enrich the network of support here on campus so that every member of our community has people looking out for him or her and knows where to go for more help when things get tough. Towards this end, we have a few sub-goals.
- Knowledge - We want to provide you with information about ways students commonly struggle and what you and others can do to help.
- Skills - We want to help you develop your helping skills, particularly the skill of empathic listening and responding, through practice.
- Perspectives - We want to provide a safe place to look at issues facing college students from a variety of viewpoints and find a way to think about these things without perpetcuating stigmas about them.
- Connection - We want to build a meaningful connection both between you and us at the SDCC as well as between you and your fellow trainees.
The pragmatic details
If you're wondering if you'd be a good fit for SSN, the answer is yes. The training is designed for any student (and there's now even a staff/faculty track as well) and we never turn applicants away for any reasons other than scheduling conflicts or sessions becoming full. The time commitment is 1 hour per week for 6 weeks, and we base the meeting times on your schedule. As it stands, we currently train students in B and D Terms and staff/faculty in C Terms. Trainings are conducted by members of the SDCC staff who will rotate in and out; by the end we hope you'll have met most of our staff!
I'm interested, what next?
If you'd like to be included in an upcoming Student Support Network training series, please fill out our online application below. It will only take a few minutes and once you apply, we can keep your information on record for any future session, even if the very next one doesn't fit your schedule. Once you've applied, we'll contact you to set up an interview in the last few weeks of the term prior to your training term (A for B, C for D, etc.) in order to get to know you and fill out some paperwork. Then we jump right in and begin training! Students who have completed the series tend to really enjoy it... next time you see someone in an SSN hoodie on campus, ask them about it! We hope to see you soon!
Next Training Series: D Term 2012
Application Due Date for Next Series: February 10, 2012
SSN Application
Questions?
We'd be happy to speak with you about any thoughts or questions you may have regarding the program. We can be reached at:
sdcc@wpi.edu or (508)831-5540
Please ask for Matt Barry.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: May 24, 2011 14:31:07