CSUDH’s digital platform “YOU” was launched three months after the agreement between  Student Psychological Services’s CSUDH and Grit Digital Health. Photo by Unsplash on Unsplash, edited by Anthony Vasquez.

By Anthony Vasquez, Staff Reporter

As Student Psychological Services plans to gain wider notoriety with students and staff they partnered with Grit Digital Health to bring YOU to the CSUDH campus.

Grit Digital Health originally partnered with the California State University (CSU) system in 2019, where “YOU at College” was presented by Lea Jarnagin, director of Student Wellness and Basic Needs at the CSU Office of the Chancellor over a live presentation. 

Originally 14 out of the 23 CSU’s were offered slots to offer the program to their campuses. With California State University, Dominguez Hills not being a part of the original launch, Dr. Tiffany Herbert, director of Student Psychological Services, was able to advocate for the campus to join the piloting phase after two of the original 14 campuses backed out of the launch.

“It really provides personalized content centered on mental health, well-being, and student success overall,” Josephine Lara, mental health educator assistant, said. 

This includes student’s lives outside of campus whether it’s seeking information on managing relationships, dieting, and life after college. While the platform is centered around helping students it is also available for any staff and faculty that have a CSUDH email. 

YOU’s structure is built around three main emphases for their users: succeed, thrive, and matter. The platform is meant to completely revolve around users’ interests so your feed becomes completely personalized after answering general questions that the platform poses in relation to these various topics. The more you continuously engage with YOU the more it will tailor to your own individual needs whether they are academically-based or mental health-based. 

Resources include articles related to the specific needs users specified, the ability to set personal goals within the platform, and self-check tests to monitor users’ progress as you utilize YOU.

On top of helping students and staff, YOU is meant to aid students and provide them with a safe space to privately seek help and comfortably disclose personal information. 

Josephine along with Laura Castillo, assistant to the director, worked alongside Dr. Herbert from October 2020 until January of this year to embed all of SPS’s resources into the platform in order to personalize and capture all the elements SPS normally offers. Information in regards to wellness tips, physical locations for those in need of immediate assistance, future events, and appointment booking to see a psychologist.

The platform before launching was originally tested in the first few weeks of this semester before being released for all students and staff to use.

With the platform being fairly new they came across some issues during the testing phase that involved users logging in, but they quickly resolved this after speaking with IT. 

Currently, 26 students and 17 staff and faculty have currently registered themselves on YOU.

“Having resources at your fingertips is something that we felt many students might need right now,” Josephine said. 

As in its piloting phase, Student Psychological services hope students and staff find the platform helpful and useful so it can potentially return permanently. 

If you are in need of assistance or help you can also contact SPS here:

Phone: (310) 243-3818

Email: psychservices@csudh.edu

For more information and updates on CSUDH Student Psychological Services, follow its social media platforms here:

Twitter: @torowellness

Instagram: @torowellness

Facebook: CSUDH Psychological Services