Montclair State University CAPS is Capped in the Aftermath of COVID-19
The university’s counseling and psychological services struggle to stay afloat.
By Ariel Rogg
What’s one of the biggest yet most invisible consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic? Effects on mental health. Even with all hands on deck, professionals are still scrambling to fix the damage it’s caused to college students, and Montclair State University’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) know this struggle all too well.
Even as we slowly move into a post-pandemic era, CAPS is struggling to handle the sweep of mental distress on Montclair State’s campus. Since the very onset of COVID-19 just over two years ago in 2020, the department has experienced severe understaffing, overbooking with appointments and a lack of outreach between them and the student population.
Since most people have returned to campus since the onset of COVID-19, CAPS is attempting to utilize their different programs and resources to connect back with the campus community. One of these resources is the CAPS Mental Health Ambassador program, where students can serve as peer leaders and advocate for mental health at Montclair State.
Valentina Balsamo, a junior psychology student, sought help from CAPS early on in her collegiate career, as she had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a difficult autoimmune disease. This hardship is one of the reasons that ultimately led her to becoming a Mental Health Ambassador herself.
“When I came to this university, I did hear about CAPS, and I was like ‘maybe I should give it a try, maybe they can help me accept the fact that I’m gonna have this autoimmune disease for basically the rest of my life,’” Balsamo said. “It does make me upset when people are struggling and they can’t make an appointment with CAPS because they’re so booked right now.”
While some found ways to be productive and positive during the pandemic’s peak, being away from campus was not an easy feat for Balsamo.
“I had to move in with my grandmother who has Alzheimer’s, it was very hard to take care of her,” Balsamo said. “I couldn’t go out and see anyone, and then I couldn’t afford to live on campus that following semester, so that was really hard seeing all my friends on campus having fun [but obviously social distancing] and I couldn’t.”
From Balsamo’s perspective, finding the balance between being a student and staying on top of her struggles has not been simple.
“I think for me, mental health has made it harder,” Balsamo said. “Trying to maintain my health and doing school work can be hard, but what makes it better is having a good support system.”
A study conducted by Montclair State faculty members and doctorate students, which surveyed over 4,700 college students, focused on the impact of COVID-19 during its Spring 2020 peak. The one factor that remained constant across the entire sample was the effects on mental health.
In treating these obstacles, CAPS director and staff psychologist Dr. Jaclyn Friedman-Lombardo says one of the most difficult issues within the office was managing the transition to telehealth. Once the pandemic hit, out-of-state students could no longer be seen by New Jersey-licensed psychologists. This made the process of students treating their mental health more challenging.
“That was really, really hard,” Friedman-Lombardo said. “We were already working with some of these students, so all of a sudden we had to refer them to people in their area. That was challenging and super tricky.”
With telehealth comes the necessity of technology access and a space to themselves; not all students were afforded that.
“Some people don’t have great Wi-Fi or their family was on it too,” Friedman-Lombardo said. “It was hard to coordinate great technology, or many of our students didn’t have privacy at home.”
Not only was it hard for students, but it was also difficult for CAPS staff themselves, as they couldn’t collaborate with one another or be as close in the office.
“Working from home during the pandemic was really difficult because psychologists work collaboratively with each other, we brainstorm with each other in the moment, it’s this energy the counseling center has,” Friedman-Lombardo said. “Not eating together, wearing a mask with COVID policies. It didn’t feel as team-oriented.”
Stevanie Rhim, a sophomore business administration student, is no stranger to the pandemic’s detrimental effects on mental wellbeing.
“My mental health took a serious toll,” Rhim said. “I was depressed, I was anxious. I live with older people so it was really important for me to stay safe. Everyone’s anxiety, I think, was taking a toll.”
Though Rhim doesn’t have personal experiences with CAPS herself, she’s gotten her fair share of feedback from others.
“I’ve been seeing a therapist almost my entire life, so I didn’t need to necessarily see CAPS and use those resources,” Rhim said. “But I’ve had friends that have had experiences with CAPS. The majority talk highly [of CAPS], others talk about how there’s no opportunities for them to get appointments [with CAPS] because of how busy they are right now.”
To many mental health professionals, like Montclair State psychology professor and psychotherapist Phoebe Farber, the impact of COVID-19 on students is still noticeable.
“It’s sort of a domino effect,” Farber said. “The sense of confusion, fear, isolation can really move into a very depressed state where your motivation is down, your energy is down…and so you do less, and then that exacerbates the sense of futility.”
Dr. Farber says, from professional experience, that mental health figures are also struggling on their end.
“There’s a lot of need, and it can lead to feeling overwhelmed as the caregiver, and a sense of perhaps burnout,” Farber said. “I know there’s been a lot written about nurses who are experiencing a tremendous amount of burnout, in addition to doctors, therapists are feeling burnt out because they’re just trying to play catch up.”
One of the biggest hopes that Dr. Friedman-Lombardo has, along with the rest of the CAPS, is that more staff vacancies will be filled in the fall, and that more will be in-person for both clinicians and students.
“I’d really like to do all of our groups in-person,” Friedman-Lombardo said. “Students have really been wanting that. I think that this has always been an issue, students have always been wanting to be seen.”
At the end of the day, Rhim is hopeful that mental health is not a topic soon to disappear, for CAPS or for the Montclair State community as a whole.
“A lot of people are doing therapy more, a lot of people are using their counseling services at their schools,” Rhim said. “So I think it’s a total shift. But I just hope that even when the pandemic stops, what we learn from it does not stop.”
