Summer is almost over, and you know what that means.

As Alicia wrote earlier, it’s getting to be that time. Back to school! If you’re a college student going away to school, you’ve probably started making your rounds at Target and Bed, Bath & Beyond for the essentials (flip flops, always, if you are living in the dorms) and high school students – just a few short weeks of summer left!

In light of the back to school season, I wanted to cover my experiences with the curriculum and support provided by my alma maters in regards to healthy relationships and perhaps more broadly, the well-being of the students.  I’ll be covering, in reverse chronological order:  University at Albany, Bronx High School of Science, and I.S. 227 – The Louis Armstrong Middle School.   As you’ll see, all my experiences are based in New York State, but we would love to hear more about other states and areas, so please let us know of your experiences below in the comments!  This first post on the subject will cover Albany, and then I’ll cover the others in future posts, discussing some of the issues that come along with the state-mandated curriculums.

SUNY Albany – Like many universities, SUNY Albany has a pretty substantial health and counseling center, providing a full range of services.  Specifically, they have the Sexual Assault Resource Center, with resources dedicated to Intimate Partner Abuse and Stalking.  While I encourage you to look at all the resources within those pages, please review the Coordinated Response to Stalking and Intimate Partner Abuse, How to Help (whether you are a student, parent, friend, or faculty/staff member), and additional resources.   I was very fortunate in my time at Albany as I never required these services, and obviously the hope is that the students don’t need them either, but I am impressed and relieved that there are these resources specifically dedicated to this.   During my time in Albany, I was also a part of the Middle Earth program, a program that provides telephone assistance (and now it looks to be offering online assistance as well), and it’s completely anonymous.  It was an extremely rewarding experience, so I highly recommend interested students to check it out to see if they would like to join, but also – any Albany students in crisis, please give them a call.  You don’t have to disclose anything you don’t want to, but they are there to help you in any way they can.

Let’s open it up in the comments – what did your schools offer?  Did you have resources like these?