Student SPILL (Supporting Peers In Laidback Listening) is an

anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

and confidential

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...

online support system for

college A college ( Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...

students launched in December 2008. Available 24 hours a day, students can go to the Student SPILL website and vent about problems they are experiencing in an

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

message (a “Spill”). Student SPILL receives the message, makes the student's identity anonymous, and forwards the Spill to four to six student

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

s who are “trained in effective listening and writing

empathetic Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...

responses”. Each volunteer sends a response to the student within 24 hours for free. In their response to Spills, Student Supporters provide local and national resources that may also be helpful to the Spiller. The Spilling process ends here, as all Spills are "one-shot deals". As of February 2011, Student SPILL is available to ten

post-secondary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

campuses across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, and only students with

.edu The domain name .edu is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The domain was implemented in 1985 for the purpose of creating a domain name hierarchy for organizations with a focus on education, even abl ...

email addresses from these institutions may use the messaging service. However, Student SPILL is expanding rapidly and has affected over 1,000 students since its creation. Student SPILL also categorizes each Spill registered by the website to find unique trends to each college. At the end of a term, “Spill-using schools can leverage the data the service provides for student retention, risk mitigation,

suicide prevention Suicide prevention is a collection of efforts to reduce the risk of suicide. Suicide is often preventable, and the efforts to prevent it may occur at the individual, relationship, community, and society level. Suicide is a serious public health ...

and to develop recommendations for services they should consider.” Student SPILL intends to be a complement of existing

counseling Counseling is the professional guidance of the individual by utilizing psychological methods especially in collecting case history data, using various techniques of the personal interview, and testing interests and aptitudes. This is a list of co ...

services and decrease the stigma associated with seeking professional help. It does not attempt to replace counseling services. There is a rising gap in ratio of counselors to students of only about one to every 1,600 students. Whereas the recommendation to counseling centers is one full-time equivalent counselor for every 1,000 students. At the same time the student need for counseling services is increasing. As a result, waitlists at college and university counseling centers are escalating. SPILL may serve as a one-time substitute when students who need immediate support and cannot acquire professional assistance. SPILL may also be a stepping stone for students afraid to seek professional help. Student Supporters often provide the college counseling center as a resource in their responses to Spills. Peer referrals to counseling centers may be most effective because peer providers have the capacity to be as effective, or more effective, than professionals at delivering some services.

References

External links

*Official Websit

{{DEFAULTSORT:Student Spill Student organizations in the United States