UNC students start support program during pandemic to destigmatize mental health

Many students experienced loneliness, isolation and a general worsening of their mental health after they abruptly left campus last spring — leaving their routines, friends and lives behind. 

During this time, UNC students Sonam Shah, Sage Atkins and Toby Turla created Peer2Peer — a one-on-one virtual peer support program.

“I saw a lot of people on Facebook forums and things like that,” Shah, a neuroscience and health policy and management double major, said. “People asking for solidarity or just people kind of being lonely.”

Shah said she and Turla set up a preliminary version of the program during the pandemic. It began as a COVID-19 student hub, with just a Google form. Shah said she then got in touch with Atkins and other students who had experience working with mental health on campus. 

“We wanted to get a variety in terms of not only graduate students, but also undergrads, and kind of seek out people we personally knew that might be interested in starting a program with us,” Shah said. “But we’re hoping that if we get the support and have an inflow of people and peers who want to talk, that we'll be able to grow our network, and have an even more diverse group of students as key responders.”

'They're not alone'

Clare Landis, a peer support facilitator for Peer2Peer, said she and her peers wanted to work on destigmatizing mental health by making it more of a topic of discussion. She said they sought to provide resources for students who are struggling to make the community more "mental health-friendly."

Atkins, a biology major, said Peer2Peer gives students the opportunity to talk to a peer responder as many times as they’d like at no cost. He said both undergraduate and graduate students fill the roles of peer responders. 

“We try to offer as many opportunities as we can for someone to find someone that they connect with or feel comfortable talking to,” Atkins said.

Atkins said responders come from a variety of backgrounds. They each have an introduction on the Peer2Peer website that tells a little about themselves and what they’re comfortable talking about.

Students seeking support can go to the organization’s website to request a peer responder, and a meeting will be set up between them. 

“We have some graduate students that went to undergrad at others schools and they were involved in peer support programs there,” Atkins said. “So some of the information they brought back from how they did things has been really useful for us as well.”

Atkins said they looked for students who had previously been involved in peer support or mental health groups to some capacity. 

Turla, an environmental health sciences major, said they looked at applicants’ lived experiences that are shared with other college students.

Atkins said they launched Peer2Peer in hopes that students will have more options to seek support this semester. He said what makes Peer2Peer a different resource than other alternatives is that it gives students the option of anonymity. 

“Another really important part is to make students aware that they’re not alone in some of the things that they’re facing,” Shah said. 

More mental health resources for students

Counseling and Psychological Services Director Allen O’Barr said CAPS is fully prepared to provide services to students in the case the University sends students home and becomes completely remote. He said CAPS will be online for the most part this semester and that students can call in or register on the website to set up an appointment. 

Services including individual therapy, group therapy and medication consultations will continue to be available this semester virtually, O'Barr said. 

CAPS' website lists more peer support organizations for students that aim to reduce stigmas surrounding mental health while increasing awareness, including Active Minds at Carolina, Mind Above Matter and Rethink: Psychiatric Illness. 

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