After going fully online last spring, American River College students may have found more reasons to feel stressed or anxious; some may have even fallen physically ill. 

For those students, the Los Rios Community College District provides resources that may be able to help ease them through the pandemic. 

According to the California Community College Wellness Central, research shows that every 1 in 5 college students suffers from some sort of anxiety. This can come from dealing with balancing relationships and work on top of education.

Reaching out for support can be difficult but ARC provides students with mental health and wellness portals, such as Telehealth or the ARC Health and Wellness Center, that allow access to 24/7 health care and support services. With these resources, students can find support for medical and emotional needs.

Telehealth is a virtual health care center for all Los Rios students that provides access to licensed professional medical workers who are able to diagnose students with certain medical conditions such as common cold, sinus infection, conjunctivitis, and swimmers ear, along with other common health conditions.   

“This service is covered by the Student Health fee paid at registration. It is available to all students, regardless of whether they have other medical coverage,” said Dee Dee Gilliam, Los Rios Community College district director of health and wellness. 

Telehealth also covers topics such as medical support, prescription administration, and counseling. It is accessible through the ARC website in the Health and Wellness Center, a portal for students with various resources including academic, financial and health resources.

The ARC Health and Wellness Center focuses on the six dimensions of wellness, which is defined as academic, emotional, financial, physical, social, and spiritual dimensions. 

Each dimension has a portal to multiple resources for students to utilize depending on their needs. Included in the academic dimension is information on ways to improve study habits and time management.  

The emotional dimension, for example, offers general mental health resources and addiction support and outreach programs. The financial dimension gives students access to financial aid support, homeless resources and ways to access food. 

Sexual and reproductive health along with sexual assault support can be found in the physical dimension, the social dimension focuses its resources on LGBTQ+ information and awareness and the spiritual dimension gives students the ability to explore spirituality without interfering with beliefs and religions.

Along with each dimension in the Health and Wellness Center, students are able to access other support services such as mental health screenings and CampusWell, a health and wellness newsletter. 

CampusWell offers online resources for topics such as body, food, mind, academics, self, relationships, money and sexual culture. Each category has links and articles to walk-through activities, questions and answers, recipes and more. 

While there are already many resources available for students, Gilliam said that Los Rios wants to provide access to more health care resources for all campuses. Many students have already accessed these resources but Los Rios would like to see more people utilize what they provide. 

“We continue to work on new partnerships and find new resources to assist students, and local mental health resources,” Gilliam said.