Minot State University offers multiple intervention and prevention services to improve students’ mental health for academic success.

The university recently adopted a new stepped mental healthcare model so students can move up, or down, depending on their needs. Steps can be as simple as a referral to another campus resource, such as the Academic Support Center, campus ministries or career services, or as intensive as individual or group therapy. If needs are outside the scope of practice for MSU’s counseling team members, they can refer students outside to community resources.

“We wanted to tailor our approach to meet the needs of all students and to give them a little bit more control over what mental healthcare looks like for them,” said Troy Roness, clinical mental health counselor at MSU.

The counseling team believes in working hard to educate students on mental health services to prevent mental health emergencies versus intervening when things get difficult. The team does educational outreach in the evenings and on weekends to meet with athletes, international students and with students in residence halls and in every freshman experience course.

Roness said the fall semester is the busiest time for counseling services as there are incoming students who are adjusting to being away from home and dealing with heavy course loads. Last year between two full time staff, the counseling services handled around 1,700 visits.

“We always encourage students to just walk over. We have really made our clinic as friendly, as open and as comfortable as possible. Students can walk over, they can call, they can email or they can schedule an appointment online from their campus account. We encourage them to reach out anytime they need. There’s nothing too big, nothing too small. Beginning therapy or beginning services is really just a conversation. So we try to take the stigma away and we let them know that they’re fully in control of the direction that it goes,” Roness said.

MSU also offers mental healthcare apps and a virtual relaxation hub on its website. The app, Therapy Assisted Online (TAO), allows counselors to directly message students and assign videos and other mental health content. Roness said this was a valuable tool for students as they can access it from anywhere and seek help without face-to-face interaction.

The counseling and healthcare staff are also on the institutionwide Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT). The purpose of BIT is to connect students of concern to campus and community resources. Faculty, staff and peers are able to submit reports on students who are in imminent situations and in need of time-sensitive help.

Counseling services are included in student tuition so no extra cost is incurred to utilize these services.