Mission Statement
UNCG’s CARE Team is an interdisciplinarity unit responsible for holistically supporting students by identifying, assessing, and responding to distressing academic, emotional, and/or life challenges. UNCG’s CARE Team promotes a Culture of Care through assessment, outreach, and education.
Responding to Students in Distress
Students may experience a great deal of stress during the course of their academic experience. Some students find the various pressures of life unmanageable or unbearable. You may be the first person in position to help the student. Take the initiative to reach out to the student, say something, and call for assistance.
Behaviors that may indicate a student is distressed:
- Deterioration in quality of work
- Missed assignments
- Repeated absences
- Essays or creative works that indicate extreme hopelessness, social isolation, rage, fear, or despair.
- Direct statements indicating distress
- Unprovoked anger
- Sudden changes in personality
- Excessive dependency
- Tearfulness
- Deterioration in physical appearance
- Lack of personal hygiene
- Excessive fatigue
- Visible changes in weight
- Coming to class bleary-eyed, hung over, or smelling of alcohol or other drugs
- Any written or verbal statement which has a sense of finality or a suicidal tone to it
- Essays or papers which focus on despair, suicide, or death
- Statements to the effect that they are is “going away for a long time”
- Giving away prized possessions
- Self-injurious or self destructive behaviors
