The Counseling Center

The Counseling Center offers workshops designed to assist students with personal growth and development.  These workshops teach valuable skills to help students achieve personal and academic success from your first semester on campus all the way to graduation and beyond.  See workshop topics and schedule below:

Creating Routine to Support Distance Learning: This workshop provides effective tools to increase routine and motivation for remote learning, and directs students to additional resources for virtual academic support.

Beat Stress for Academic Success Workshop: This 50-minute workshop focuses on the top three factors that disrupted academic performance in 2014: stress, anxiety, and sleep difficulties.  A social worker from the Weigel Wellness Center will help participants learn healthy ways to predict and cope with stressful times in the academic year, mental and behavioral ways to reduce anxiety, and small ways to change one’s habits and environment to improve sleep.  For more information contact the Counseling Center at 716-878-4436.

Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) training, is designed to teach participants how to recognize someone who may be in emotional distress or having suicidal thoughts, and how to appropriately engage and connect that person to resources that can help. Anyone can practice QPR in any setting, and it is appropriate in all relationships. QPR does not require clinical training, only a willingness to listen, care, and help. Members of the SUNY community may register by going to http://www.qprtraining.com/setup.php and entering “SUNY” as the organizational code.

The Counseling Center will be available via (Zoom, BBC, or whatever medium is available) to answer any questions about QPR on the dates listed below:   

Cannabis Screening and Intervention for College Students (CASICS): a Brief Motivational Intervention for students struggling with Cannabis use. This program will be provided upon request.  See more information below.

Marijuana use among college students is the highest it has been in 35 years and is associated with negative physical, mental/emotional, relational, and academic effects.  With marijuana becoming legal in New York State, there can be a lot of conflicting messages and confusion about the risks of use and many students may find that their marijuana use is having a harmful effect on their lives. 

CASICS is a two-session, brief Motivational Interviewing-based intervention in which students will be provided information about the impact of cannabis use, explore personalized feedback and recommendations based on their own experiences, set goals related to their use, and identify ways to minimize the impact of marijuana on their lives.  To learn more about CASICS or schedule an initial session, call the Counseling Center at (716) 878-4436 and ask to speak with Ashley Maracle about CASICS. 

Mindfulness Skills Workshop – Thursdays 3:30-4:30pm, 9/16-12/16, Student Union 419

Learn and practice a new mindfulness skill each week.  Learn how to:

• manage stress and anxiety from within
• reground and reset post-pandemic
• recognize and process difficult emotions
• improve your focus and memory
• listen and learn more effectively
• settle your mind to access your wisdom and talent
• access your own internal resources to better navigate change and uncertainty

Student Union 419, the "Bengal Stripes Global Learning Lab."  Open to all, single-session or repeated.  Seating will be distanced, with masks required in Student Union.

It’s Complicated: Grief in 2020: This workshop will focus on grief associated with current events, including but not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing media/national attention to systemic racism and police brutality, individual instances of discrimination, decreasing access to social supports, and the transition to distance learning.  As the result of this workshop, students will be able to:

• Identify the impact of grief on their individual lives
• Understand that the grieving process is non-linear and individualistic in nature
• Identify at least 3 self-care strategies to cope with grief

 Supporting Communities of Color: This workshop focuses on exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on marginalized communities. This program will take an intersectional approach to identifying the various ways that these communities are uniquely affected by national crises including racism. Additionally, facilitators will offer strategies for self/community care aimed at improving and maintaining mental wellness.

These one-session, online workshop will be offered as live presentations and in pre-recorded format to allow students to access at their convenience.

See Schedule below: