For Hillels across the country, including KU Hillel, mental health and wellness services for college students is of high priority.
KU Hillel’s yearslong partnership with Jewish Family Services continues with Stronger Than You Know, a peer mentorship program created to equip participants with the ability to support fellow students in crisis situations.
This program uses the upstream approach to prevent harmful behaviors and suicide in young adults through forming tightly knit communities. KU Hillel and JFS partnered on the curriculum, infusing it with Judaism and bringing it to Hillel students.
“Students came to us wanting to be more involved in the mental health and wellness space, and wanted to receive training to make a difference in their peers’ lives,” said Suzy Sostrin, KU Hillel Executive Director, about the program's demand. “[They] see their friends struggling with mental health and want to know where to turn. Stronger Than You Know provides them with concrete ways to ask a fellow student if they are struggling.”
Stronger Than You Know is facilitated by Rabbi Neal Schuster; Wendy Anderson, KU Hillel’s therapist in partnership with JFS; and Sondra Wallace, JFS’ Mental Health Coalition Coordinator. It is based on the core idea of Sources of Strength, which creates groups of students who are able to help others in need of mental health support.
KU Hillel and JFS professionals met together to enhance the Sources of Strength curriculum, said Rabbi Neal Schuster, KU Hillel’s Senior Jewish Educator.
“We expanded it in our educational and content approaches,” Schuster said. “We added elements of cognitive behavioral therapy as well as new developments in the scientific understanding of emotion. We have approached it through the lens of creating tools that our participants can access and easily use in the moment.”
As a participant in the second cohort, Sammi Grofsky, a sophomore, is excited to help other students.
“I want to be able to be there for others when they need it, and Stronger Than You Know is helping me to learn that,” Grofsky said.
For David Marx, junior, his interest in joining the cohort came in part from majoring in psychology at KU.
“It is an opportunity to learn more about being that supportive role for other students,” Marx said. “Stronger Than You Know is a great way to gain another perspective on how to provide support and encouragement for people my age.”
Rabbi Schuster explained that it is not about training students to become therapists or rescuers, but rather that they have the tools ready in the moment.
“If a student is experiencing anxiety and catastrophic thinking, our trained students could use a sequence of questions discussed in Stronger Than You Know classes to reframe what they are anxious about and interrupt the cycle,” he said. “We are also bringing in interactive and experiential education tools and methods to learning that make it more engaging and effective.”
Through contributions from the Kansas City community, KU Hillel also has a licensed therapist as part of the team, in partnership with Jewish Family Services. This therapist provides one-on-one counseling with students, help for students in crisis, and weekly stress-fighting projects during Wellness Wednesdays, Sostrin said.
“Given how incredibly critical our work in mental health is for our college student community, we have continued to expand upon our Jewish Family Services partnership,” she said. “Our students continued to seek out Wendy Anderson, our therapist, throughout the pandemic for virtual appointments and now sees our students in-person again as well.”
During the pandemic, visits to KU Hillel’s therapist from students steadily increased.
In order to prevent a wait list from occurring, JFS helped open up additional therapists’ availability during more stressful parts of the year, Sostrin said.
“Having access to a free therapist and having it in your home away from home is simply life-changing for our student population,” she said. “We see the difference in our students’ resilience and strength.”
Anderson visits KU Hillel for in-person appointments on a weekly basis and helps program Wellness Wednesdays. Started as a mid-week event for busy students to take a break during the day, Wellness Wednesdays is well-attended by Hillel students.
KU Hillel looks forward to additional collaborations between area partner organizations in the future.
“We are so thankful for how supportive the Kansas City Jewish community is with a willingness to create together,” Sostrin said.
