After a successful pilot of RADical Hope’s mental wellness initiative on campus last spring, Fairfield will offer the program to a larger cohort of students this academic year.
The RADical Hope foundation is meeting college students where they are – on campuses across the country – with a first-of-its-kind, skill-based resilience program that empowers them to work through life’s challenges before they reach a crisis point. The initiative, RADical Health, was developed and piloted last fall in partnership with New York University, and will be scaled nationally by RADical Hope this academic year.
Fairfield University, which also completed a successful pilot of RADical Hope’s mental wellness initiative last spring, is among over a dozen schools nationwide that will offer the four-week RADical Health program to its students. The Foundation is funding RADical Health in full for every partner school, delivering the program completely free-of-charge, with the goal of reaching one million students as soon as possible. RADical Health also customizes an online platform for every school partner so students can use the program as an on-ramp to their own school’s resources and activities.
In addition to RADical Health, Fairfield University Counseling & Psychological Services also offers students free, confidential services for full-time undergraduate students. Graduate students are offered a single session for consultation and referral at no charge. Individual psychotherapy, group therapy, substance abuse treatment, psychiatric evaluation, and referral to local mental health providers is available. Members of the professional staff are licensed psychotherapists who provide confidential, short-term psychotherapy to students, and are trained in many modalities of therapy. Therapy sessions that help students navigate adjustment issues, relationship problems, family issues, and emotional distress are offered, as well as psychiatric evaluations and medication management for undergraduate students. Fairfield also provides graduate students with access to on-demand mental health counseling via video, chat, or messaging through a teletherapy platform that enables students to discreetly select among licensed mental health professionals.
RADical Hope was founded by Pam and Phil Martin following the 2017 suicide of their son, Chris Martin, during his junior year at Gonzaga University. The Foundation is committed to addressing America’s youth mental health crisis by building resilience and strengthening connections in young lives.
Learn more about RADical Health.