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BY MENGHAN JIN

In print | Published August 25, 2011

Speak 2 Swatties (S2S), a student-run peer counseling organization, is planning several new counseling resources for the student body, including a 24-hour hotline and an online chatroom.

In past years, Speak 2 Swatties primarily offered in-person counseling services through open office hours in the peer counseling center located on the second floor of Upper Tarble. But, according co-directors Jessica Schleider ’12 and Natalia Munoz ’12, office hours were seldom used.

“Not all students could take the time out of their extremely, sometimes ridiculously busy schedules to find the peer counseling center in its esoteric location and seek out a peer counselor who they don’t even know,” Schleider said.

Realizing this, the peer counselors gathered at the end of the last academic year and brainstormed several ways to increase the group’s accessibility, revamping old resources as well as developing new ones for all students.

“There’s been a challenge advertising our in-person services, just because people just don’t have the time to use things like that,” Schleider said. “We’re sort of learning that, after a few years of trying to get behind it, maybe other ways of reaching out would be more effective.”

A first of its kind at Swarthmore, S2S’s 24-hour hotline will allow students, at any time of the day or night, to call or text a peer counselor. S2S is planning on having at least one counselor attend to the hotline at all times.

“The hotline was actually the idea of a student who . . . spoke of the comfort the hotline would provide to students experiencing loneliness or desperation, whether clinical depression or more mild distress,” peer counselor Miriam Goldstein ‘13 said. “Just knowing you could connect with another human being whenever you needed to, she imagined, would make a huge difference.”

An online chatroom is also in the works. S2S hopes to make it available to the student body in the fall every weekday after 4 p.m. and after 1 p.m. on Sundays. It will offer students anonymity in the chatroom, with the aim that it “can enhance the likelihood of people opening up without feeling social pressure,” according to S2S’s website.

According to Goldstein, students can choose to either talk to a peer counselor privately in the chatroom or to anyone else who is logged on at the time.

Munoz is optimistic that these new resources would be easy for the group to maintain. “Swatties are always at a computer; Swatties always have a cellphone on them,” she said. “They’re both really convenient initiatives, because they’re compatible with most of people’s regular activities.”

With a total of 15 counselors on board for the fall semester, counselors will be able to pick their own shifts in order to accommodate their schedules, Munoz said.

Goldstein, however, is concerned that these initiatives will be “quite time-consuming to manage,” but remains optimistic. “We have . . . a revived energy after revamping our program and accepting several new peer counselors, who have already contributed great enthusiasm, ideas, and commitment,” she said.

In addition to the hotline and chatroom, individual peer counselors will be assigned to particular dorm areas. These assignments are advertised on S2S’s posters that will be posted throughout campus.

“We thought maybe assigning dorm areas to counselors would make them more approachable,” Munoz said. “People would know they have a set group of counselors … they [can] count on because they were nearby.”

S2S is also in the process of planning bi-weekly meetings open to the entire campus, in which counselors would facilitate discussion on common issues that students face, such as managing stress and balancing work and relationships.

According to Schleider, it would be a place for students to talk about their personal experiences and thoughts in a safe and supportive environment.

Peer counselors are not the only available resource for students in search of psychological help, however. Therapists at the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) offer professional psychological counseling and psychotherapy to students.

S2S distinguishes itself from other counseling services on campus through its peer counselors, who provide a student-based alternative to the professional-led services of CAPS. Peer counselors are students that have trained themselves in active listening and aim to be an easily accessible source of help for their peers. No appointment is necessary, and with a chatroom in the works, students can seek help with an unprecedented level of anonymity.

“We try to present ourselves … as a less formal alternative to CAPS, for people who either don’t feel like going to CAPS, but still would like to talk to someone, or for people who feel more comfortable talking to their peers,” Munoz said.

While S2S is planning on having both the hotline and chatroom ready to go once all counselors return back to campus, Schleider and Munoz’s next big task will be to successfully advertise S2S’s new resources to the student body. They will be meeting with Dean of Students Liz Braun and other members of the administration early next week to iron out the details.

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