>> My name is Ann Marie Palmer.
And I'm associate director with Student Care Services at the University of Central Florida.
And then we're here at the main campus in Orlando, Florida.
So we work with students that are typically in some sort of crisis or distress.
And that can be academic, personal, financial.
We work with a lot of students that are seeing a mental health crisis or episode in their life
and need to get connected with services.
So we might have a student who started going to class, was having a good start
to their semester, and then maybe stopped taking their medication
or are having a newly onset mental health challenge.
And so they start to disengage.
So typically a faculty member or a roommate or a friend, somebody will notice
that the student is either socially withdrawn
or they've maybe completely dropped off the radar, they're non-responsive.
And so we reach out to students one-on-one.
We try to engage them to come into our office.
And then we will do an informal assessment of their needs, and so we will work with them
to kind of figure out next steps and make an action plan for their success.
Each day, you know, probably meet with about three to ten students kind of depending on,
you know, what time of year it is.
Otherwise it's a lot of marketing, outreach, going to all of our campus partners.
We do a lot of site visits with community agencies.
We have great relationships with Jewish Family Services, Harper House, Covenant House,
a lot of agencies that either might refer students to us because they're already working
with them or we think that student would benefit from their services.
At the first level it's about empowering them, kind of helping them organize themselves
and figure out what is the most urgent need at this time and how do I go about that?
So the basics are teaching students about self-advocacy.
Because once they can understand it's okay to go and ask for help, explain your situation,
tell other people what you need, they're more inclined to kind
of take some of those steps themselves.