Outreach

Our Commitment to Promoting Well-Being Through Outreach

The UMaine Counseling Center is committed to supporting the mental health and well-being of all students through spreading awareness, education, and stigma reduction. We offer a wide variety of outreach and education efforts in the form of programming, workshops, and trainings as part of our mission to positively influence the greater campus community.

Why Outreach?

Through outreach, Counseling Center staff are able to connect with the larger UMaine community and foster a more inclusive, kind, caring, and compassionate community. 

Our goal is to provide relevant programming on a variety of mental health related topics, with an emphasis on building a mentally healthy community through trainings, presentations, and other formal and informal interactions.

Workshops/Presentations

Workshops/presentations are an easy way to introduce students to a variety of topics ranging from prevention, education, and postvention.

Due to limited staffing resources, we are not able to attend every presentation we are asked to do. To continue to meet this need of our community, however, we have created mental health care packages and bite-size video workshops available upon request and on our website.

Fall 2023

  1. Crisis Assessment and De-escalation Training (CAD): This interactive training for staff and faculty teaches signs and symptoms of distress, crisis assessment, de-escalation skills, and points of contact for resources.
  2. First Year Seminar: This presentation is for first year students to better understand common mental health symptoms and explore ways to manage and cope with stress.
  3. Gatekeeper Training: Typically offered to Residence Life staff, this training explores signs and symptoms of suicidality, dispels myths, and teaches intervention techniques.

Should you like to have our staff present on a mental health topic, please complete the program request form and our staff will follow up with your request.

Mind Spa

The Mind Spa is now housed under the umbrella of the Student Wellness Resource Center. Our Counseling Center staff will continue to collaborate and consult with Student Wellness in order to offer support and an array of programs to meet the diverse needs of the University Community.

Suicide Prevention Efforts

Our goal is to continue to make UMaine a place where we can have honest dialogue about feelings of hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. By bringing this struggle into the light, we hope that students will seek help and get the support they need and deserve, before it’s too late. Read more about what we currently do to help make our UMaine community safer from deaths by suicide.

Fresh Check Day

The Counseling Center is proud to be involved during the Spring semester in Fresh Check Day! Our goal is shed light on prevention through mental health education and dialogue.

Out of the Darkness Bangor Walk

This year, the Counseling Center is participating in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Walk on the Bangor waterfront. Join us 9/24/23 at 10:00 to walk in solidarity to prevent suicide.

International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day

The International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day (ISOSL) is intended to bring those who have lost someone to suicide together in their shared journeys of grief, healing, and remembrance. This community event has typically consisted of a small gathering for discussion and a vigil at the Wilson Center geared towards survivors of suicide loss.

Events

During the Spring 2019 semester, the Counseling Center launched the first ever #UMatter #UMaine event. Check out the videos below to catch a glimpse of what this week long event was all about 🙂