Kids in Crisis: Morgan State, HBCU, students find ways to cope with mental health given stigma

BALTIMORE - COVID-19 pandemic put a big, some say overdue, spotlight on mental health, especially with college students.

It's made institutions everywhere rethink how to serve students' needs.

But at HBCU's, including Morgan State, that can be an even bigger effort.

It took a traumatic event for Morgan State student Cherise Castello to really start taking care of her mental health.

"It took me losing my mother in 2020 to actually feel comfortable to go to therapy because that was a huge, and I lost her during the pandemic" Castello said.

The political science junior serves as an resident assistant, which helped give her a pulse on the state of mental health on campus.

"How does that change student life, going to school in the middle of a pandemic? WJZ's Dennis Valera asked.

"Sometimes they're high functioning, so they're always going to get the task done," Castello said. "But at the same time, they're suffering with some form of depression. I suffer through it as well."

Castello also serves as the Student Government Association's Health and Wellness representative, so this school year, she's tried to become a point person for fellow students dealing with mental health issues.

She told WJZ it is a task that can be complicated for Morgan State students given the stigma mental health wellness has with students of color.

"Some of them are hard to crack," Castello said. "But all those pressures, especially being an HBCU student, being Black on top of it, because you still have stressors of racism, you still have stressors of being a student, and depending what your financial issues, you have all those together, with the pandemic."

In her role, Castello tries to do constant check-ins, and she gets her students informed about what's on campus, like the counseling center or connecting on the UWILL app, which is a 24-7 portal to virtual counseling Morgan State started using in the fall.

Dr. Danny Molock, Director of Morgan State's Office of Student Life and Development, said that in the past few years, a lot of their programming has expanded to address mental health.

"Every October, we put on what is called 'I will listen week'," Dr. Molock said. "We start off with a chapel service, right, to focus on our spiritual health. We go into depression screenings, stress testing, so students can kind of see where do they fall, right, when they take these assessments."

Another example, during final exams, Morgan State brought in therapy dogs to relieve some stress.

The overall goal with all this to help connect students with others like Castello to build community.

How critical is being together and building community to help with mental health now? Velara asked.

"I think it's so essential because through building that community, students are able to share their experiences," Dr. Molock said. "What they're realizing, the person sitting next to me could be going through possibly the same thing. So i no longer feel alone, right?"

Dr. Molock believes Morgan State is on the right trajectory.

Castello hopes all of this is more of a foundation to build upon.

"There's always more that can be done," Castello said.