Harrison Paletta
Equinox Staff
The Wellness Center at Keene State College is a useful resource on the third floor of the Elliot Center for students to use when feeling down, depressed, alone, and many other feelings.. The Wellness Center includes several counselors and therapists that can be met with by setting up an appointment ahead of time or through walk-in during the appropriate hours. Not only does the Wellness Center include therapists, but also health services and sexual harassment services. Forest Seymore, explained what the counseling center does. Forest is a staff counselor and the coordinator of sexual violence education and prevention at Keene State College and is the recipient of the New Hampshire Visionary Voice Award. Forest also graduated from Keene State College and holds a master’s in social work from the University of New Hampshire.
Forest said there are three different areas that hold different purposes. The first area provides health services, meaning any kind of physical health issue like a broken toe, cold, sexually transmitted diseases and many other concerns. Appointments are free for students, but costs for medication is possible.
The second area are the counseling services, which entails individual meetings or single sessions for emotional help and advice. No matter what the issue, simple or complex, they are there to help students get those services. They also do group therapy sessions for multiple people at once.
Lastly, the third area is called wellness promotion, which is getting out of the Wellness Center and working with students on campus about all sorts of health promotion like exercise, sexual violence prevention, alcohol and drug issues. The Wellness Center is a combination of the center for health and wellness and the counseling center and for years they have been separated until now. This year both departments have been brought together into one which Forest is really looking forward to because now everyone is under one umbrella and it gives the chance to offer more holistic health for students and pools all their wellness promotion resources.
According to Forest, almost all students use the Wellness Center at one point at Keene State College, so its popularity is high on campus. Also, the Wellness Center is just useful in general for students to use which ends up happening a lot. They have good relationships with student groups, sports groups, and many other campus groups. Christie Jadlocki,who works at the front desk of the Wellness Center, said the center is a whole health center and she works directly for the counseling services. When setting up appointments or meetings with the center, there are three main ways to go about it for students. The first method is just to walk in especially if it’s an emergency, someone will be there to talk to and get help from if needed. Secondly, you can reach the center over the phone, they have their own personal line. Lastly, you can reach the center via email and set up an appointment.
Harrison Paletta can be contacted at hpaletta@kscequinox.com
