Adjusting to life on a college campus isn’t always easy. Between balancing education and living away from home, the mental challenges can often be more than many expect.

But that’s where Jessica Laymon and Jessica Treadwell come into play.

They are striving to ensure every student on the Binghamton University campus feels like they have a place to go if they need to speak to someone about any struggles they might be dealing with.

“We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the students that we work with, that having a peer-to-peer support system has that something that makes engaging in mental health care and getting support around mental health a lot more comfortable. So they've been a lot more willing to engage with us,” said Treadwell, residential life department assistant director of student support.

Treadwell heads a new program on campus, connecting students with students. Nearly every campus residence now has a social work intern living within the community, ready to speak to them about a variety of topics, or connect them with mental health services.

“It's been a really great experience for me. I get to communicate with the students. I get to connect with the students on a in person level, and it's really great being able to provide these resources and connect them to services,” said Laymon, Binghamton University intern.

Interns spend their free time tabelling across campus, looking to spread the word about what is a fairly new program.

When it started in 2019, 650 students met with an intern within their residential dorm. That number dropped a bit during COVID, with less fewer on campus, but last year, it nearly doubled with 1,200 students reaching out for help.

“That's roughly one in seven to eight residential students. So I think with the increase in mental health needs kind of coming off of COVID and having students really work to reengage in a person-to-person setting, again, it's been extremely helpful for a multitude of reasons. We as a department noticed that there was a need for additional support for our residential student body, both through students telling us, but also through our residential staff who provides direct support to students," said Treadwell.

“There's a lot of students that might be struggling with just adjusting to college life, just finding their place here, or just roommate conflicts, interpersonal conflicts. So just being able to be here, be that support, meet with them. If there's any mental health stuff that's going on, we can just connect them to those services. So I think that this is a very needed," said Laymon.

It's so needed, in fact, that universities across the northeast are now reaching out, in attempt to model this exact program.