A mental health awareness program for women in sororities at Miami University is planned to debut early next semester, put on by the Panhellenic Association, Student Counseling Services and the Office of Health Education.
According to Claire Dickerson, director of public relations for the Panhellenic Association, the program will do a number of things.
"(The program will) go over basically what mental health is and what it means to be mentally healthy," Dickerson said.
According to Leslie Haxby McNeill, acting director of the Office of Health Education, the idea for the program came from the students, instead of the office saying they needed the program.
"It's the students who are saying this is what we see going on and this is something that we think we need to educate our members," Haxby McNeill said.
Dickerson said the program is being done to shine light on issues not addressed at Miami and to prevent more serious issues.
Dickerson said the program would also go over how to identify the shifts from normal behavior to at-risk behavior and from at-risk behavior to serious clinical problems. She added that they will also go over the common factors that trigger shifts in behavior.
The final part of the program will be how to help someone who may be at risk, according to Dickerson.
"We're going to go over what happens in counseling services," Dickerson said. "I feel a lot of people that are reluctant to get help don't because they don't know what's going to happen or they're worried about the process."
According to Haxby McNeill, the program will be didactic.
"Some of it is information (and) sharing knowledge," Haxby McNeill said. "Some of it is interactive where the women in the group might help us develop a list of what kinds of things might be stressors."
Dickerson said that the program will be voluntary for all women in sororities.
"We all know how stressed out we are and adding another program might not help and so this way it will be people that actually care and actually want to get involved," Dickerson said.
The program will be about an hour long and each chapter can decide when they want to have it, according to Dickerson.
Dickerson said there has been a lot of interest from the different sororities on campus.
"Basically all of them wanted to get involved and either wanted more information or wanted to set up (a session)," Dickerson said.
Jackie Pasek, president of Zeta Tau Alpha, said that her sorority would definitely participate in the program.
"I think a big problem in sorority life right now is girls having too much stress on them or developing eating disorders or problems like that," Pasek said. "I think there definitely needs to be some sort of outlet for them (and) they need to talk to someone."
Pasek said she hopes to start an open dialogue in the chapter about it and have the girls who attend the program speak about it at chapter meetings for the girls who couldn't make or didn't go to the program.
Dickerson said her idea for the program came after the shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in April and when one of her marketing professors spoke about the lack of discussion about mental health at Miami.
"Being on (Panhellenic Association), I've had a lot of chances to see the programs that we do," Dickerson said. "We address alcohol awareness, we do eating disorder stuff, and we do a lot of other things, but we didn't address the bottom line."
Dickerson said she hopes this program will be able to prevent those other things and allow women to address problems before they become too serious.
Haxby McNeill said that the planners of the program talked to students about what they have seen and heard to develop the program. She added that they probably could have come up with two or three different topics related to mental health.
"This particular (program) is aiming mostly at how to help your sister (and) how to identify things that might be potentially problematic," Haxby McNeill said.
Dickerson said that she does not think Greek women have more stress than other Miami students, but this is where she decided to start with the program.
"I know that being in Greek life there are these opportunities and a lot of time restraints, but that's the same with any student depending on what you get involved with," Dickerson said.
Dickerson said that sisterhood is about supporting one another and caring about each other's mental health.
"(The program) is going to shine light that we all have issues and we all have stresses and we all aren't perfect and that's OK . . . but you need to talk about them and you need to address them before they become real issues," Dickerson said.
Dickerson said that she would love to see other groups at Miami pick up the program. She added that she thinks general mental health on campus will benefit from Greek women participating in the program.
Haxby McNeill agreed that the program would benefit Miami as a whole.
"I think a lot of times we pay attention to other facets of our health and that we don't really think about our mental health in the same way that we think about other dimensions of wellness," Haxby McNeill said.
