The Benedict News Spring 2021 Edition

ers how communities of color have suffered the effects of the pandemic disproportionately,
Dr. Davis said, students have had solid reasons to be fearful. Some students lost family
members, a grave challenge to anyone’s psyche, he said.
“It wasn’t only the students, actually this affected the whole Benedict’s community,” Dr.
Davis said. It was very hard, he noted, for everyone to stay optimistic during a time when
cities like Newark at times led the region in cases and rates of infection.
Many students,
Dr. Davis said,
have experienced
bouts of
depression and
anxiety during
this prolonged
period of stress,
which in turn
adversely impacted
their performance in school. Acknowledging the severity of the pandemic and its
outsized impact on students’ mental health, St. Benedict’s Counseling Department, led by
Dr. Davis, devised a strategy to improve matters.
First, members of the Counseling Department made themselves accessible and available
by sharing their emails and phone numbers with the community. “Being available to everyone
helped a lot,” Dr. Davis said.
In addition, the Counseling Department offered family counseling for those who requested
it. There was a great need for it, Dr. Davis said, and many requests. Being available for
not just students but the whole St. Benedict’s community helped many, Dr. Davis said.
The third major initiative the Counseling Department had to undergo was to move from
counseling members of the community in-person to an online format.
Counselors also had to find a way to serve the community while maintaining safety procedures.
“In-person counseling was better because you would see the student and the
student would be open to everything he or she wanted to say,” Dr. Davis said. “ In other
words, there was no one to judge what the student was saying because they were in a room
with me.”
In contrast, with online counseling, students may not have the kind of privacy necessary to
speak openly. “They may feel uncomfortable talking about certain topics,” Dr. Davis said.
Despite those challenges, the Counseling Department found a way to move forward and
hold online sessions. “Counselors stopped worrying about matters they couldn’t control,”
Dr. Davis said. Students realized instead, Dr. Davis said, that, most of all, “their health
matters more to us.”
“Helping each other out during this time was the most beautiful thing we ever experienced,”
Dr. Davis said.
43 Issue 2 Volume 3 Spring 2021