Counseling

If we can be a guiding light, so to speak, to help students navigate this chapter, then—I mean—that’s huge.

We offer free mental health counseling by licensed counselors for all enrolled students at Northeast State. We also offer counseling at our off-campus sites by appointment, and we provide telehealth services as well. Our goal is to meet students where they’re at.

We primarily offer individual, one-on-one counseling. It is confidential. We're hoping to get some support groups up and running for students. Our goal is to expand the services we currently have. So right now, it’s individual, one-on-one counseling. We can refer out if needed, and of course, we offer telehealth for students who may not feel comfortable coming to campus or who have transportation issues.

If we see that a student needs more intensive services, we do have partnerships with area agencies. For example, Frontier Health is very aware of our students and actually works to help get them some free services.

We have a webpage, you can call our office, email us, or just stop by. We do have students who just drop in. We’re housed on the Blountville campus in the General Studies building.

You can just reach out, and I’m happy to coordinate and meet you on your campus. I mean, you’re taking classes there for a reason—it must be convenient. So if I can make it easier by coming to you, I definitely will try. If for some reason that can’t work out, then hopefully telehealth might be a viable option.

We work with students on a variety of different issues. It may be test anxiety, it may be generalized anxiety disorder—there’s a spectrum of all kinds of different issues that students come in with. Ideally, what we want to offer is at least a safe space to explore thoughts and feelings and know that they won’t be judged.

We’re here to listen. We’re here to navigate that with you. So whether it’s test anxiety, relationship issues, depression—we’ll sit, we’ll listen, and we’ll try to map out what’s going to be successful and healthy for that student.

I would say, number one: 988. 988 is the national crisis line, and if you call it, it will divert to a local crisis center here in East Tennessee—maybe in Johnson City or Kingsport. That is, I think, the quickest way. Of course, 911 is always an option, and they’ll get the appropriate resources to you.

I got to follow a lot of students from the moment I started until the end of the spring semester, when a lot of them graduated. And I mean—that’s a huge accomplishment for them. That’s success. That’s growth. They were able to find that energy, find that courage to keep moving forward so they could hit that end mark and graduate.