This past Fall a survey went out to multiple students on the UT Austin campus from the Counseling and Mental Health Center (CMHC) that was focused on catering to the needs of Asian-American students on campus as a growing population.

“This survey is actually one of the very initial steps that we’re taking to try to identify the needs of Asian American student on campus” Staff Psychologist and Asian American Outreach chair, Mona Ghosheh said. “We wanted to better understand who is in that Asian-American group and who identifies with that just wanted to get a better idea of what the Asian American population looks like.”

According to CMHC Associate Director Jane Morgan Bost, CMHC needs assessment surveys as one of the first steps to seeing what resources they can use to have events or start initiatives such as Voices against Violence (VAV) and Be That One suicide prevention.

There is not a universal definition of Asian American

“When [Mona] got here there had not really been very many needs assessments with Asian Americans and last year; they were 20 percent of the incoming class,” Bost said. “That’s a big group that we don’t have much [university]-specific data on in terms of mental health needs.”

Both Ghosheh and Bost mentioned that UT-specific surveys help ground the programs and initiatives that started to address what the students want in terms of physical and mental wellness counseling, as opposed to generating programs or events based on what may or may not work.

“We understand there is not 'one size fits all' in terms of mental health services and what could be helpful.” Ghosheh said

One of the main things Ghosheh is aiming for by sending out the survey is seeing what level the students are on as far as mental health needs and how they can best be met.

“It’s about being able to meet students where they’re at,” Ghosheh said. “It’s about
acknowledging their ways of seeking help that work best for them.”

So far, there have been over a dozen different sub groups of Asian-American for the
survey.

“There is not a universal definition of Asian American,” Bost said “It’s about figuring
out the landscape of this population before going in with assumed ideas of what’s
best”

Outreach is a branch of CMHC that works outside of the CMHC building to interact with students on campus.

“To be able to have people who actually go out of the CMHC and talk to these students is a sign that we’re taking this seriously that we believe that we want to be inclusive in reaching out to all students and welcoming to all students,” Bost said.

Outreach services goals are to get in contact with students to teach them more about
CMHC, and also to get in contact with those who may not ever actually go to the CMHC building.

“Some groups may not even come into the counseling center so going out there provides some interface as opposed to little or no interface,” Bost said, describing that outreach services are meant to be preventative.

Ghsheh also emphasized that outreach services are meant to be proactive, rather than reactive.

“As opposed to waiting until someone is feeling stressed or alone the outreach services are preemptive and trying to let students know what stress could look like before it happens.”

Ghosheh said she hopes for the survey to provide results that will not only help to better-serve the needs of Asian-American students on campus, but also to find how UT could better-utilize CMHC's services.

“Some of the results may be that we’ll collaborate with someone else it will not necessarily be just Mona by herself,” Bost said.

The survey was conducted during the fall 2013 semester, and collected contact information from students wanting to be a part of a possible focus group in Spring of 2014. These focus groups will serve as another step in finding out the CMHC needs of Asian-American students in terms of outreach.

“After sending out the survey I had several or more students reach out that were interested that wanted to know more,” Ghosheh said. “They wanted to participate in further information gathering but were worried about their schedules in the spring.”

According to Ghosheh they received a 38 percent response rate. Totaling up to 3400
students that have taken the survey. The expected response rate was 20 percent.

“That’s out of the entire Asian-American population,” Ghosheh said. “Meaning everyone who identified as Asian-American when they registered for classes at UT.”

Overall there is positive feedback from students about this effort to identify the needs of Asian-American on campus, and both Bost and Ghosheh are very pleased with the results.

"There’s so much energy and excitement about this which is so rewarding for me,” Ghosheh said. “It’s neat to see there’s excitement bouncing back and I’m looking forward to what’s going to come out.”