October 2017


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The University’s Counselling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is tucked away in a corner of the Health Services Unit (HSU) building. It’s a small space – just a couple offices and a waiting area with a brochure stand chock-full of information on various issues that affect university students. A quick rifle through and you’ll find the usual suspects of student distress: navigating relationships, dealing with stress, overcoming anxiety. You’ll also recognise other common plagues like eating disorders and self-harm, and mental illnesses like bi-polar disorder and depression.

If you’re visiting and you have to wait, worry not – there’s a lot to keep you occupied and enlightened, which is, in fact, one of the CAPS biggest responsibilities, says Dr. Sarah Chin Yuen Kee, Counsellor and Co-ordinator. For a large campus like The UWI St. Augustine, with its student population of almost 19,000, “a counselling service … should be playing a huge role in promoting proactive self-care and mental health wellness,” she says.

A clinical psychologist, Dr. Chin Yuen Kee has more than 20 years’ experience working in mental health; she’s spent the last 11 at the CAPS. Until two years ago, the CAPS was a part of UWI’s HSU, but following a restructuring of the campus’ student services, it now falls under the Division of Student Services and Development (DSSD). The CAPS’ Mission is “promoting mental health and wellness across the campus community.”

Counselling services are vital to a university for a number of reasons. The typical university student is between 18 and 25 years old, the “key age range where a lot of mental illnesses appear for the first time, like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia,” says Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. “That age range is essentially the bulk of our student population,” so, though they may be the minority, there are “students who will develop mental illnesses during their time at university.”

Add to that the fact that society is “more stressful,” especially as students are taking greater responsibility for their own lives – financial problems may arise and, of course, they’re dealing with the general stress of university life – “mental health can take a real bashing.”

In addition to its face-to-face counselling services for students, the CAPS educates staff and students on mental health through outreach programmes, which communicate its services and encourage students to take advantage. However, the CAPS faces a challenge. “People often think … something [must be] seriously wrong with you to have to go to counselling,” shares Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. “There’s that stigma that if you do come you’re really messed up.” So, she takes the CAPS to the students.

Since all undergraduate students must complete one or two foundation courses, one initiative has been to include a 15-minute presentation, covering a different mental health topic each semester. She points out that the Science, Medicine and Technology in Society foundation course always had a health component, but it didn’t address mental health. “So, I negotiated with the course facilitator to include a half-hour session.”

“Obviously I’m advertising the counselling service,” she says, “and I always emphasise that visiting a counsellor … is just an opportunity to talk out whatever is going on in your life and help you figure out the next best step.”

She is aware, however, that despite efforts to destigmatise counselling, “a lot of students will never come and see a counsellor.” They may talk to someone they identify with or trust, however, like a fellow student, Resident Hall Assistant (RA) or lecturer. So, “we’ve instigated all kinds of training across campus,” like the Mind the Gap co-curricular course, which is a prerequisite training programme for students joining the Guild of Students’ Peer Counselling Association (PCA). “We cover lots of common mental health issues,” and focus on teaching active listening skills and assessing risk, Dr. Chin Yuen Kee explains.

The Faculty of Science and Technology has a peer advisor programme, where “students sign up to help other students within that faculty.” The CAPS provides them with training in listening and helping skills, dealing with students experiencing trauma, and recognising common mental illnesses, like depression. RAs also have a mental health component in their training. “It’s very important that staff know there is a service that they can call for advice,” if they’re worried about a student, “or can refer [that] student to.”

There are workshops too.

“We’ve run several ‘Mind Your Madness: Challenging the Stigma’ workshops,” which focus on issues faced by students. She recalls one workshop series that focused on “obsessive love,” a topic relevant to university students, as many are “negotiating serious relationships for the first time,” and don’t understand that domestic violence is not only physical, says Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. “Your partner checking your phone all the time, criticising the way you dress, bad talking your friends, or not wanting you to go back to your family on the weekends,” also constitutes abusive patterns. “That was the most popular workshop ever,” she says.

Another topic addressed “why sanity is a myth,” and introduced the idea that “mental health exists on a continuum. We can all have symptoms that, if they were to persist [and] make us less capable of doing our work, could actually constitute a diagnosable condition, but doesn’t mean you have that for life,” says Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. Mental health is fluid. “Sometimes we are more well and sometimes less well.”

Other workshop topics include suicide, self-harm, anxiety and depression. These workshops are free and open to the campus community so “people … understand [mental health] a little bit better and there are fewer myths like, ‘only weak people get depressed’. That’s just ridiculous,” she says. There are “genetic reasons and underlying physiological factors that people don’t understand, so they think that mental illness is in your head,” and people experiencing depression should simply pray about it or adopt a better attitude. “But,” she says, “if your biochemistry is working against you,” sometimes medication is necessary, “just as you would take insulin for diabetes.”

Dr. Chin Yuen Kee also talks about the CAPS Open Mind Series which looks at “more provocative stuff,” like “why monogamy is a myth” and, last year’s workshop on sexuality which explored LGBT issues, different sexualities and gender identities, the “ABCs of sexuality.”

In 2013, the CAPS also established the Safe Space programme, a therapeutic support group, which meets weekly, to discuss issues of “sex, sexuality, gender identity, stigma [and] bullying,” says Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. The intention was to initiate a conversation across campus, “because, in the Caribbean, there are pockets of huge intolerance to anything that is beyond the heteronormative view.” Young people who may be questioning their sexuality or realise that they “don’t fall into the standard,” may be “afraid to come out” or ask questions openly, “and we know that [LGBTQ students], are more likely to be isolated.” So, she says, the CAPS responded to the need for safe spaces for LGBTQ students by creating the Safe Space programme. She explains that it’s a peer support group, where these students can get to know, and socialise with, supportive peers, “both in and out of the LGBTQ community.” Since Safe Space began, “we’ve had a huge shift on campus,” she says. In fact, “last year, a student group started, called
LGBTQ Joy … and I thought that was fantastic,” – it was a student-led initiative and the first of its kind. The DSSD recently hosted a “love march,” which was another event with big impact. “Again, for the first time, I saw students with LGBTQ rainbow posters and LGBTQ slogans … I really don’t think that would have happened back in 2008.”

This semester, says Dr. Chin Yuen Kee, the CAPS is focusing on suicide, “because that’s another issue that’s very misunderstood.” Typical misconceptions are that people who consider suicide, or attempt it, are “selfish or weak.” The truth is, “suicide is rarely about wanting to die, but about coping with incredible pain.” If your life is unbearable and you have no hope of it ever changing, ending your life may seem logical, she explains. “It’s often an expression of despair, a desire for escape or relief, not a desire to end your life.”

But the stigma and shame attached to suicide often prevents those suffering from talking about their feelings, “and it’s almost impossible to get any support if you don’t speak up.”

Unfortunately, the incidence of students experiencing suicidal thoughts is too common. Dr. Chin Yuen Kee says that the CAPS conducts risk assessments for students who indicate thoughts of suicide. These thoughts, she says, can be “as fleeting as, ‘I wish I were dead,’” or they could be “an incredibly well-thought-out plan.” These assessments are meant to determine “what the student’s suicidal feelings mean to them.”

Over the last academic year, 116 suicidal risk checks were completed and, just three weeks into the current semester, Dr. Chin Yuen Kee has already done over 20 risk assessments.

The past few years have seen suicides on campus and within the wider community. In an effort to start a dialogue on understanding suicide, the CAPS has partnered with the Yellow Pebble Foundation to initiate the [Fullstop.] project, which aims “to promote mental wellness among our young adults.” It was launched over the August vacation, via social media – look for “[Fullstop.] project” on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and was rolled out on the campus with this year’s orientation. The project will also be highlighted as a part of October’s Mental Health Awareness initiatives on campus. The UWI staff and students are showing their support by visiting [Fullstop.] online and posting photos of themselves wearing [Fullstop.] buttons, posing with the [Fullstop.] sign, or just posting a selfie, to say, ‘I don’t stigmatise and I will support a friend if they open up to me.’

Through [Fullstop.], the CAPS is also attempting to gather data “on our experiences of suicide locally,” Dr. Chin Yuen Kee says. The project is running an anonymous online survey with just four “yes-no” questions. “We’re encouraging people, once you reside in Trinidad and Tobago, to go online, fill out the survey and help us gather local data.”

The CAPS is also encouraging students to take care of their mental health, by hosting fun events and activities this October. Of particular interest are the Mood Food workshops that the CAPS will facilitate in collaboration with the PCA. They will be held at the residence halls on UWI’s main campus, as well as at the Mt. Hope campus. These workshops aim to help students understand their eating habits and how those habits affect their mood and cognitive abilities. It’s important that students know they need to eat well so they can “study well, sleep well and remember what [they] studied,” advises Dr. Chin Yuen Kee. Not only will students learn the theory behind healthy eating habits, they’ll also learn to prepare budget friendly snacks that are healthy and easy to make. Smoothies and cinnamon popcorn were on last year’s menu.

The CAPS and the PCA have also approached U.WESpeak, a spoken word performance group, to “partner up for their October event,” so their performances will showcase some aspect of mental health.

Dr. Chin Yuen Kee says that the CAPS will also highlight stress management, mindfulness and meditation throughout the semester. There will be Mindful Mondays, a weekly workshop focused on “relaxation, meditation and mindfulness.” A workshop series on anxiety, held every Thursday in October, will teach students about different aspects of anxiety, like “social anxiety, panic, performance anxiety and why anxiety overlaps with depression.” The CAPS is working with the Guild of Students to host two workshops for postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students, on coping with stress and relaxation strategies, as well as recognizing depression and suicide.

With so many mental health initiatives already established and those to come during October’s Mental Health Awareness drive, Dr Chin Yuen Kee hopes that all students will have the opportunity to participate in at least one activity that will encourage them to take better care of themselves.