YourDost

India is currently going through a mental health epidemic with more than 56 million people suffering from depression and more than 14% of the population requiring active mental health intervention. Unsurprisingly, a similar predicament of mental well-being is seen in our Institute. Exploring the multitude of opportunities on campus, coupled with competing against the cream of the country has put students under immense stress. 

With the high stakes that mental well-being carries in a student’s life, it becomes of the utmost importance to have a robust support structure in the Institute. Although we do have professional counselors on campus, the sheer size of the support required is nowhere close to the reality. IIT Bombay currently has a student-to-counselor ratio of 1111:1, which significantly falls short of the recommended 500:1. 

These dismal numbers, along with the uptick in the number of students suffering from mental health issues, caused the administration of our college to look for solutions. As a result, an initiative was steered by the Dean SA’s office to bring on board a 24*7 online counseling service for the students of IIT Bombay. Bandhu, a legacy project of the Batch of 1992, has now collaborated with YourDost, an online counseling platform, to complement the current mental health support structure at IIT Bombay. This collaboration was brought to execution by the Batch of 1992 with support from the Core Counseling Team of IIT Bombay. 

YourDost aims to help students with mental health-related issues reach out to counselors instantaneously and anonymously. This can be done by simply starting an audio call, video call or an Internet chat at any hour of the day. 

An obvious drawback of online counseling services is the inability to deal with severe and urgent cases. However, YourDost has a separate plan of action for such cases. It is called the Red Flag Protocol and it deals with cases of high severity which need active intervention by the college. Whenever red flag cases are encountered, experts from YourDost gather the socio-demographic details about the students while maintaining confidentiality. Special attention is provided to the student. Such cases may also be continuously monitored by the crisis intervention team to prevent any unfortunate incidents. As per Your Dost’s protocol, in case of critical situations about a potential red-flag, the institution is informed about the situation first. In the proceedings, it may require breaking confidentiality to focus on ensuring the student’s well-being. As of January 2022, 1 student was discovered and marked as a red-flag case and the case was immediately reported to the institution.

Since they introduced the 24*7 counseling services, Bandhu has already had a significant impact. So far, they have conducted 199 counseling sessions for students on campus. Bandhu offers two types of counseling services, the 24*7 chat counseling services and audio/video counseling services. Currently, a majority of the sessions are conducted through the chat mode, with an average length of 33 minutes, demonstrating the demand for quick therapy sessions at short notice. These sessions also have high retentivity, with 60% of the students returning for at least three sessions in the month of February. Further, Bandhu’s many positive reviews and testimonials prove the effectiveness of their counseling services.

Bandhu has been working on improving the mental well-being of students since 2020 through various initiatives, articles, and workshops. The counseling services are another major step in the right direction. These services can finally make up for the poor student-to-counselor ratio on campus right now.