News & Events
Articles from STAT, The New York Times, and BU Today that feature some of our staff, classes, and programs.
Active Minds Conference Highlights Key Recommendations from the Center’s Leave of Absence Guides
In the spring of 2021, the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation released, with the support of the Ruderman Family Foundation, one-of-their-kind Leave of Absence Guides: A Guide for Students and A Guide for Campus Leadership, Staff, and Faculty. These are practical tools for navigating and supporting students taking and returning from a leave of absence that are positively changing the landscape of how we support students taking and returning from leaves of absence in higher education.
These Guides were central to the Active Minds Leave of Absence Workshops hosted online this fall. For hope and help understanding leaves of absence and best practices and policies, tune into the recordings of the workshops below.
The Quadcast features Dr. Dori Hutchinson in “Supporting Students with Serious Mental Illness in College: Discussing Life-changing Policies and Programs”
In this episode of The Quadcast, Dr. Dori Hutchinson, Executive Director of Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, discusses how colleges and universities can vastly improve their support for students with serious mental health conditions, from supported education, to improved access to accommodations, to more flexible policies on leaves of absence and re-entry. Dr. Hutchinson describes working with students in the NITEO program, which helps students on leave build resilience and avoid shame with an 84% success rate of returning to campus. The pandemic, Hutchinson says, has produced an opportunity for college administrators to offer more supportive options for students with serious mental illness.
BU Today Features College Mental Health Leave Guides Created by CPR and the Ruderman Family Foundation
“The number of college students experiencing mental health issues was high before the COVID-19 pandemic, but those numbers have soared since, making it harder for many to receive treatment. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that three quarters of students faced distress.
In response, the Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (CPR) has cocreated two first-of-their-kind manuals—one for students, the other for faculty and staff—with best practices for campus leave-of-absence policies and for using a leave productively. The manuals were funded and cocreated by Boston’s Ruderman Family Foundation, an advocacy group for people with disabilities.”
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In the News
New York Times
A Climb Out of Depression, Doubt and Academic Failure
NITEO, a wellness, resilience, and academic skills-building program supports students prepare return to college and achieve their goal of higher education.
NITEO alum, Varsha Srivastava, shares how the program helped her develop the strategies and supports needed to thrive in school.
Spot On! Episode 38: Quarantined- Manage Your Mental Health – Features Dori Hutchinson
Director of Services at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, Dr. Dori Hutchinson talks to Dr. Joan Salge Blake, Nutrition Author, Media Expert and Nutrition Professor at Boston University about how to care for your mental health after your routine has been completely disrupted. She teaches about how to manage anxiety and how to practice self-acceptance.
Webinar: Taking Care of Your Health During Challenging Times
Presented by Director of Services Dori Hutchinson and moderated by Larry Kohn, Director of Development at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation for the Boston University Alumni and Friends.
We are living, learning, parenting and working during harrowing times. The CoVid-19 virus has upended our lives and our futures feel uncertain and unsafe. Learn how to build wellness and resiliency, strategies for staying well, find personal meaning and opportunities for growth during this unprecedented and collective experience.
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The Harvard Gazette: Mental health as a diversity issue
Moderated by Callie Crossley, WGBH host of Under the Radar, the panel of experts helps us to better understand mental health, how it impacts the workplace, and how to identify best practices for managing mental illness at work. Courtney Joly-Lowdermilk participated in the panel with strong contributions on safety, diversity and mental health: “We can’t count on people to disclose — it’s not their job or responsibility. It’s our responsibility to create a culture where we are not shying away from talking about it and creating a space where the safety is there”
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Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer.
BU Today: Live Storytelling Designed to Erase the Stigma around Mental Health
The Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation co-hosted a dynamic and powerful event, This is My Brave College Edition. In this article, Courtney Joly-Lowdermilk , Director of the NITEO program, stresses the importance of students speaking up and sharing their stories of challenges with mental illness and the support, tools and resources they have utilized to find and maintain wellness, the successes they have achieved by returning to academia and how they have thrived while breaking through stigma while deeply inspiring others through this process.
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BU student Ali Gold (Sargent '20) speaks at This is My Brave College Edition, working on a project related to mental health. Photo by Jacob Chang-Rascale.
STAT: College can be brutal for students with serious mental health conditions. Here, they find support their schools can’t provide.
NITEO and College Coaching at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation: collegiate mental health resilience programs help students return to college and stay well.
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Student D'Amoura Rackard (right), participates in a coaching session with NITEO Director Courtney Joly-Lowdermilk, (left) image from Kayana Szymczak for STAT
New York Times: A Climb Out of Depression, Doubt and Academic Failure
NITEO, a wellness, resilience, and academic skills-building program supports students prepare return to college and achieve their goal of higher education. NITEO alum, Varsha Srivastava, shares how the program helped her develop the strategies and supports needed to thrive in school.
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Boston University student, Varsha Srivastava. Image from Hilary Swift of the New York Times.
New York Times: Colleges Get Proactive in Addressing Depression on Campus
The Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University provides collegiate wellness programming to students at Boston University and beyond. Director of Services, Dori Hutchinson, explains how the innovative, collegiate programming at the Center provides opportunities to build the skill of resilience, emotional agility.
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"Send Silence Packing" Exhibition. Image from Austin Bachand/Daily News Record, via Associated Press
BU Today: Fighting for a Future
Our hallmark college mental health program, NITEO, gets college students with mental conditions back on track. Director of Services at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University, Dori Hutchinson, shares the import of education as a tool for supporting students to choose, get, and keep their valued role and achieve their personal, academic, wellness goals.
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