Purpose and mission
The University of Washington Counseling Center’s Advisory Board is meant to be a guiding force for the activities and services provided by the Counseling Center, and to liaise between Counseling Center Staff and the student body. Our goal is that the Advisory Board is comprised of a variety of diverse student voices, particularly voices from which we might not regularly hear and belonging to historically underserved groups at the university. There will also be a UW faculty and staff representative on the Advisory Board. The Advisory Board will be a partnership between the Counseling Center and the student body to improve access to Counseling Center resources, guide which resources will be developed and offered to the student body, work to continuously destigmatize and deindividualize the pursuit of improving mental health on campus.
Applications for the 2026-2027 board will be released in Spring 2026.
Goals of the Advisory Board:
- Provide input and feedback to the Counseling Center
- Bring a breadth of student experiences from which to draw for advisory purposes
- Elevate voices from many different types of students
- Hear from students about what services are wanted from a counseling center, clinical offerings and services, input on student mental health needs
- Determine how to disseminate information about the counseling center to the general student body, and learn how to better advertise our services to students
- Provide input on website design and information provided therein
- Improve accessibility to underserved student groups, as well as primary/secondary prevention interventions for underserved student groups
- Disseminate information about how the Counseling Center functions and be ambassadors for the Counseling Center into student communities
- Involve students in understanding mental health for marginalized populations, particularly the experiences of students and how the larger system contributes to mental health outcomes
- Destigmatize and deindividualize mental health