Wellness Tutors Begin House Trials

The people who brought Harvard students the 10-minute relaxation massage, hypnosis classes and breathing seminars are attempting to advertise their services more widely through a new program of House wellness tutors.

As of this Fall, the Department of University Counseling, Academic Support, Mental Health and Alcohol/Substance Abuse Services has launched the trial wellness tutor program in Adams, Currier and Dunster Houses. The tutors will promote various health-related resources on campus and serve as a sounding-board for student and tutor mental health and wellness concerns. If successful, the program could spread to other Houses as soon as next year.

“The wellness program does not deny the importance of academic or intellectual focus, but it stresses that those aren’t the only important things in students’ lives,” said Keli Ballinger, the wellness tutor for Dunster House. “Part of my role is not just looking at one component of a person, but looking at a person as a whole being.”

The wellness pilot program was recommended by last year’s Student Mental Health Task Force. The task force, which included doctors, administrators and students, was convened in response to administrators’ concerns that the College’s mental health resources were difficult to navigate and allowed some students to slip through the crack.

The task force’s report cited the need for better coordination among the Bureau of Study Counsel, University Health Services (UHS) Mental Health Services and the Wellness Center.

Paul J. Barreira helped unite the programs when he assumed the role as director of the newly-created Department of University Counseling, Academic Support, Mental Health and Alcohol/Substance Abuse Services.

Barreira said the idea for the well tutors came from feedback from students on the task force, who said they thought that the program was needed to increase awareness of health resources on campus. Barreira said that while some tutors were already well-informed about the College’s resources, others were not.

“It seems there was an inconsistency among tutors despite some incredible testimonials about tutors,” Barreira said. “Creating a wellness tutor in the houses seemed to be a possible resolution for this inconsistency.”

Barreira said that the wellness tutor’s role is not to provide health-care for students but to be one more person that tutors and students can go to for advice about stress-relieving or mental health-related programs.

Ballinger said that she views her role as a coordinator and “navigator.”

“It’s wonderful that there are so many resources at Harvard but all of that doesn’t help if people don’t know how to access them or why they should go to them,” she said.

Though this semester’s activities are still in the works, Barriera said the wellness tutors hope to hold one activity, such as a yoga, sleep seminars and lessons on avoiding procrastination, in their Houses per month.

“The role will evolve through the year, so it’s hard to be specific at the outset about what it will do or accomplish,” said John T. O’Keefe, assistant dean of Harvard College. “But I think this role has the potential to be of great help to our Houses.”

—Staff writer Nicole B. Urken can be reached at urken@fas.harvard.edu.