At UWC-USA, we support students holistically, emphasizing physical,
mental, and emotional well-being and the interplay between them. This focus helps students manage academic pressures while fostering growth in every aspect of their lives.
Each dorm is staffed by an adult Residential Coordinator (RC) and an Assistant RC. Our onsite health clinic and tele-health counseling services ensure students receive prompt care when needed.
All students take courses on wellbeing, mental health, and self-regulation skills, as well as Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings. Staff receive extensive adolescent mental health training.
Students are encouraged to take part in a wide range of physical activities including the extensive wilderness program, yoga, dance, and a climbing wall, weight room and cardio equipment in the fieldhouse.
At UWC, food is more than a meal—it’s an experience rooted in community and care. The school’s farm provides fresh produce, while the dining hall embraces global flavors and dietary needs.
We believe physical health, mental health, and academic success all go together, leading to healthy lives as agents of change throughout the world. In recent years, we have partnered with national experts and institutions to modernize our student supports, maintain clear systems and processes, and prioritize mental and physical wellbeing.
The school has an on-site health clinic (Monday to Friday, 7 AM-4 PM) staffed by two full-time nurses and a consulting pediatric physician to provide primary care, screenings, and referrals for specialist care. In addition, we have partnered with Sunrise Clinics, a primary care group that provides both medical and mental health services, to install a medical kiosk on campus that offers tele-primary care and behavioral health support services from Guadalupe Hospital and Sunrise Clinic providers.
We have expanded access to on-campus and virtual mental health counseling and have employed a full-time Clinical Supervisor of Mental Health to coordinate care. Additionally, we have expanded psychiatric care from one to three providers to provide timely mental health follow-up support as needed. Outside clinic office hours, our on-call staff includes a nurse, a paramedic, an EMT, an administrator on duty, and residential coordinators, providing around-the-clock support for any student who needs it.
To support the work of our full-time Residential Coordinators, one teacher per dorm is now an “Assistant Residential Coordinator,” ensuring a greater presence of adults in the lives of our students. We have also modified the residential schedule to ensure increased cover during the day and 24-hour on-call availability, and ensured that Residential Coordinators are trained to call a nursing hotline provided by our insurance company as appropriate. Additionally, all Residential Coordinators are provided with enhanced training in first aid, mental health assessment and response, and medication administration to improve student wellbeing outside of health clinic hours.
Beyond our campus, we work with a number of experts to ensure our offerings and supports are informed by research and modernized to address today’s unique challenges. In recent years, we have forged new partnerships with leading mental health organizations and institutions like The Jed Foundation, Southwestern College, the Child Mind Institute, the Sky Center of the New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project, and the New Mexico Department of Health’s Office of Student and Adolescent Health. The UWC-USA Board has created a standing committee centered on health and wellbeing, and our mental health policies and practices are updated each year to ensure that we are providing the highest possible standard of care for our students.
We have launched a new partnership with The Jed Foundation, a nationally recognized non-profit that works to protect emotional health and prevent suicide for teens and young adults. Our work with The Jed Foundation will help us create a sustainable, systematic approach to risk detection, crisis management, and mental health support.
The Jed Foundation is conducting a full-scale review of our mental health policies and procedures and helping us to ensure our offerings are aligned with the latest, most up-to-date research in the field. A third-party look at our procedures and policies helps us improve as a UWC-USA community – and improves outcomes for students.
We have also partnered with Dr. David Goldston from Duke University. Dr. Goldston is a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences with expertise in adolescent psychiatry and suicide prevention. He has reviewed and provided feedback, all of which we have incorporated, on our Suicide Prevention Policy, the structure of our student health supervision, our suicide prevention/intervention training program, and our mental screening protocols.
Our leadership team is also engaged with the New Mexico Department of Health Office of Student and Adolescent Health to identify new healthcare partners and providers for our school as well as any new training and staffing needs.
We have partnered with the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute and Southwestern College Tierra Nueva Counseling Center to provide annual full behavioral health screenings for students, additional screenings for some students, and a culturally diverse group of counselors for all students.
We have also partnered with the Child Mind Institute to train our staff so that we can provide an annual evidence-based six-session course for all incoming students on wellbeing, mental health, and self-regulation skills.
We believe it is critical for students to be aware of and educated about mental health issues. We are partnering with the Child Mind Institute to provide a short course for all incoming students on wellbeing, mental health, and self-regulation skills. We also provide Youth Mental Health First Aid trainings for students 18 and over and training on the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rate Scale (C-SSRS) for all students. C-SSRS is a unique suicide risk assessment tool that supports suicide risk assessment through a series of simple questions.
We are also providing additional referrals to off-campus mental health professionals and have mandated comprehensive suicide assessment and intervention training for all staff, enhancing our preparedness to address mental health crises proactively. We have implemented new procedures to ensure and enhance direct interactions with parents, helping them stay informed and involved in their children’s education and well-being.
We also provide training for school personnel on adolescent mental health issues. Our faculty and staff receive trainings on One Trusted Adult, PREPaRE, Youth Mental Health First Aid, suicide prevention and wellbeing, Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR), and C-SSRS.
We believe that physical health and mental health complement each other. There is a wide range of physical activities available–from an extensive wilderness program, to yoga, to squash, to a climbing wall in the Lansing Fieldhouse on campus–that provide students with outlets for physical exercise. The Lansing Fieldhouse also features a weight room, a gymnasium, cardio equipment, and dance studios.
UWC-USA also has special-use permits with New Mexico and Arizona to utilize the Santa Fe National Forest, Carson National Forest, and Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. That allows our students to access remote wilderness areas and provides settings for teaching navigation, decision making, and leadership. Students are trained in wilderness skills and first aid to serve as mentors and guides, and can volunteer to become Wilderness Leaders. The Wilderness program also sponsors day hikes close to the UWC-USA campus, longer excursions for the purpose of training Wilderness Leaders, rock climbing, and canoeing activities.
Our farm on campus – known as the Agroecology Research Center, or ARC – trains students in the skills and techniques needed to practice sustainable agriculture in an arid environment while also providing a place for practical, hands-on work where they can learn new skills and discover meaningful application of their classroom learning.
Working at the ARC stimulates innovation by challenging students to think about new and different ways to approach problems such as pest management, habitat conservation, and waste management. Students engage in planting, weeding, irrigating, harvesting, prepping food, helping with farm animals, trail work, and ecological restoration, and more.
In addition, our faculty undergo CPR and first aid training every two years and many are also Wilderness First Responders who are trained to help manage basic first aid issues. Every student now undergoes a full behavioral health screening in September and the School’s Health Team reviews these screenings to evaluate the health needs of each student.
To learn more about our offerings around physical health, please click here.
UWC-USA is committed to supporting student wellbeing throughout their two-year experience. Among other policies, we maintain a comprehensive suicide prevention and intervention policy, which can be accessed in full here. We recognize that ensuring student safety is a shared responsibility among the school, parents, guardians, and national committees as we work together in the education and care of our students. As a part of our application process and at the start of each year, we request the disclosure of mental health histories from students and their parents, including current and past treatments and medications.
The purpose of this policy is to ensure that suicide assessment, intervention, prevention and related documentation are understood, promoted, and practiced as a vital part of student wellbeing at UWC-USA. UWC-USA students come from a variety of backgrounds and geographies with differing understandings and experiences of wellbeing, mental health, depression, crisis, trauma, self-harm and suicidality. Our policy seeks to provide clear guidance to the Health Team and all employees, students and families regarding assessment, prevention, intervention and documentation steps to be utilized when a student expresses suicidal ideation, suicidal intent or behavior at UWC-USA.
To read our Student Social and Emotional Wellbeing Monitoring Policy, please click here.
In 2023, our community experienced the passing of Koru Moss. Koru’s absence continues to impact our entire community, and we extend our sincerest condolences to their family and friends. Koru possessed a remarkable intellect, deep empathy, and an unwavering commitment to advocating for and serving others. Throughout their short lifetime, Koru worked tirelessly to create a more just and compassionate world.
With the participation and at the request of Koru’s parents, UWC-USA initiated an external, independent review into the facts and circumstances of Koru’s passing.
The UWC-USA Board of Trustees statement (sensitive content) can be found HERE.
A detailed summary of this independent review (sensitive content) can be found HERE.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, seek help immediately by contacting a crisis resource.
Immediate Crisis Resources:
The school’s on-site health clinic is staffed by two full-time nurses with a consulting pediatric physician. A full-time Clinical Supervisor of Mental Health coordinates mental health care, supervising counseling resources and matching students with appropriate staff.. Three psychiatric care providers provide timely mental health follow-up support as needed. Outside clinic office hours, our on-call staff includes a nurse, a paramedic, an EMT, an administrator on duty, and residential coordinators, providing around-the-clock support for any student who needs it.
United World College-USA
P.O. Box 248
Montezuma, NM 87731
