A message from Retriever Integrated Health Director, Dr. Bruce Herman:
I want to welcome everyone to UMBC or back to UMBC.
For students, college life can be an exciting time- lots of opportunities for new experiences, relationships, and learning about the world and ourselves. It can sometimes also be a difficult and stressful time that can challenge a student's emotional and physical health. Some students may feel they need extra support to cope with personal issues that may be interfering with their ability to make the most of their UMBC experience and others may just benefit from our range of health and mental health services.
Through trauma-informed, culturally sensitive counseling services, our counselors work collaboratively with students to improve their emotional well-being, balance priorities, enhance interpersonal relationships, empower them with useful coping skills to attain success in and out of the classroom, and support them to access additional outside services to meet their needs. Our counselors come from a variety of backgrounds and specializations.
All counseling services are free and confidential. We provide short-term individual counseling, group counseling, performance enhancement consultations, as well as crisis intervention, outreach, consultation, and referral services. For faculty staff and student families our counseling team is available to consult regarding how to support a student. We also offer Question Persuade Refer (QPR) training on how to support someone in mental health distress.
For students, our medical team provides both primary and limited urgent care services, including annual well and gynecological (GYN) visits, updating vaccinations and boosters, screening for various diseases, and treating acute illnesses and minor injuries. We also provide psychiatry, massage, and acupuncture services, as well as dietician consultations. Faculty and staff are eligible to receive limited urgent care type services, such as the evaluation and treatment of acute illnesses and minor injuries. Massage and acupuncture services are also available. Our medical team operates like an outside doctors office in that they bill insurance and payments can be billed to your student account.
RIH also offers a wide variety of Free Online Supports for students, including:- Togetherall- online peer support community
- Welltrack Boost- virtual self-help modules and mood tracker
- Welltrack Connect-Online database and communication tool to assist you in finding mental health treatment in the community
We are located at the Center for Wellbeing across from the library. More information is available on our website at health.umbc.edu.
Please do not hesitate to contact us at RIH@umbc.edu if you have any questions.