By Kyle Jackson
To aid students with the stress and changes of college, Grand Rapids Community College’s Counseling and Well-Being Center is hosting a series of events and workshops for students to interact with others, build community, and learn about campus resources during the semester.
Created to assist students, the Counseling and Well-Being Department offers multiple services. These services include emotional and academic counseling, online mental health screening, walk-in consultations, short sessions for those unsure about counseling called “Lets Talk,” and various free to access strategies for mental health.
In the coming months, the Counseling Department has scheduled events such as “Banishing the ‘Blahs’: Beating the Winter Blues” on Jan. 27, located in the Rader Grill, “Getting Unstuck: Understanding Depression” on Feb. 2, also in the Rader Grill, and an open house on Feb. 3 in the Student Center.
Becca Lovell is a counselor and faculty member at GRCC. Starting in 2018, Lovell began as a success coach at the GRCC Success Center before transferring to the Counseling and Well-Being Center as a counselor in 2024. Lovell is a fully licensed therapist and has assisted countless students.
According to Lovell, “We have two different types of programming that we offer. We have our workshop series and our event series.”
“The workshop series is more focused on what we like to call psycho-education,” Lovell said. “So the workshops touch on different areas of wellness, like some of the topics that we have in regards to social wellness, forming connections… We have one on engaging conflict, setting boundaries. Those workshops educate students on, on just those topics in general but also provide strategies for how to manage those types of things. How to set boundaries, how to manage conflict, how to form connections with others.”
Additional workshops focus on topics like self-care, depression, and mental wellness.
The workshop series also gives information on how to find and access resources to help with any emotional or mental needs.
“The social events,” continued Lovell, “those events are, really, the sole purpose is to create a space where students can come and connect with each other, have fun, hopefully foster a sense of belonging here on campus, help students feel more connected to each other, and feel a sense of community on campus. And we find that human relationship, human connection, that’s a huge protective factor against a lot of symptoms of mental illness, and, so, we try to create a space where students don’t have to, to protect against loneliness or isolation because those things can be really hard. Especially when students are going through a lot of change or managing a lot of different obligations or responsibilities.”
Lovell said that the workshops are more for education, and the social events are more for community fun.
The full list of upcoming events and workshops is located on Raider Connect, on advertisement screens, or on bulletins around the campus of GRCC.
