One in four college students fall into depression. That means if Diablo Valley College has around 22,000 students, 5,500 of them have depression.

DVC has been pushing to add a mental health program for countless years, and this July, the campus finally opened the Student Wellness Program — hoping to address the problem that many colleges face.

The New Student Wellness Program is going to offer therapy to all students. The program has partnered with John F. Kennedy University to provide therapy to students that are suffering from stress to having major depression. Beth Hauscarriague, the Dean of Counseling and Enrollment Services said, “We want to make sure to provide a very supportive environment, not only in the academic but also in the wellness piece of it.”

She hopes that this program will give students the necessary support and resources to helping them with any of their struggles through therapy. Some types of therapy include a lot of humanistic approaches and positive psychology focussing on positive coping strategies

In order to join this program you will need a referral and an appointment. If a student needs help immediately, then there will be someone on site to help the student, whether it’s one of the interns or a counselor. There will be two therapist interns working with the students every week on Tuesdays, from 11:30am-5:30pm and Wednesdays, from 10:00am-4:00pm. These interns will give either 5-8 sessions of therapy free of charge based on how much help a person needs.

The New Student Wellness Program has many benefits to the student body at DVC, including one on one therapy sessions.

This program is coming off of many years of discussion and DVC hopes that the therapy offered will allow students to face many of their struggles that come ahead.

This program is also being offered at Contra Costa College, and Los Medanos College.

To contact the Diablo Valley College program, either email, [email protected], or call (925) 969- 2048.