At UWC-USA, support can begin with a conversation between students who share meals, classes, and the challenges of living far from home. For Julianne ’27, a Student Wellness, Education, and Empowerment Team Resident Assistant (SWEET RA), those everyday connections give her a chance to notice when someone is struggling and to help them find support.
“One of our most important responsibilities as a SWEET RA is making students feel that they have someone they can approach without fear of judgment,” she says.
SWEET RAs provide peer support for students navigating academic stress, homesickness, relationship difficulties, and mental health concerns. Their training, including Mental Health First Aid, helps them recognize signs of distress, respond with empathy, and connect classmates with professional resources.
That role is only one part of UWC-USA’s broader mental health support program, which includes licensed clinical care, ongoing screening, and expanding access to trained adults. This year, the school is hiring a full-time therapist and has developed an internship program that brings additional adults, supervised by licensed therapists, to work with students.
“We are continually developing and improving our screenings, guided by JED Foundation recommendations, to help us identify students’ mental health needs,” says Ana Fredlund, clinical supervisor of mental health and a licensed professional clinical counselor. Strengthening communication with parents and National Committees is another priority, Fredlund goes on to say.
Within that larger network, SWEET RAs offer something distinct: the perspective of students experiencing many of the same pressures as their peers. Living together allows them to notice changes that might otherwise go unseen. Their work also includes conversations and educational programming about mental health, suicide prevention, consent, healthy relationships, and wellbeing.
Julianne emphasizes that effective support requires sensitivity to the different cultural backgrounds students bring to campus, including different expectations about discussing mental and sexual health.
“Supporting someone effectively has to begin with understanding their perspective rather than assuming that everyone experiences or communicates distress in the same way,” she says.
For Julianne, building trust also means making conversations about wellbeing part of daily life as opposed to something reserved for a crisis. When asked how first-year students can best support their mental health on campus, she encourages them to plan downtime, recognize their limits, and ask for help before responsibilities become overwhelming.
The goal of being a SWEET RA is not for students to become counselors. It is for them to help build a community where seeking support feels possible, natural, and welcome.
“Of course, peer support is never a substitute for professional care, but it can provide an important bridge to it,” Julianne says. That bridge connects the care students offer one another with the wide array of professional support available.