Cougar Connections helps support students’ basic needs

By Isaiah Joseph | Published by October 15, 2021

New Kean social work department helps connect students to helpful services inside and out of campus.

Every semester you are introduced to new people, experiences, relationships, and connections to help you tackle the obstacles you face as students, so you can walk on stage with a diploma in your hand.

Sometimes these obstacles are great enough to stop you in your tracks and this game we call life finally gets the upper hand on us. Students who go through this don’t have to fight this problem alone.

Cougar Connection, a new department at Kean, is here to help you make the path to graduation a lot easier by providing inside and outside services to support students in need of housing, food, clothing, mental health, and family crisis, etc.

Not everyone has it the best while attending school. Many students go through these struggles when their basic needs aren’t met.

According to The Socioeconomic Status Indicator, “more than a 1/3 of students in the United States lack enough to eat and stable housing.”

When it comes to your lack of nutrition it can have an effect on your mental health and disrupt your way of learning. Students develop these food insecurities when they only go to campus events to find food or force themselves to skip a meal in order to save money.

Housing struggles include students that don’t have enough money to pay for housing on or off-campus and having to spend nights and weekends in their vehicles.

In order for students to overcome these struggles, they will have to rely on a support system that can help them get through it.

Through Cougar Connections, students are introduced to the answers for all of these issues that they go through.

Erika Charles serves as the director of social work for the Cougar Connection center of social work.

She has a history of social work ranging from service in the mental health and K-12 educational settings and prior to joining Kean University.

Charles provided mental health services to at-risk populations at Rutgers Health, formerly The University of Behavioral Healthcare in residential programming, crisis intervention and stabilization, and school-based youth services.

She explains and talks about why her department is essential to student success and how it is able to help the students on campus fulfill their basic needs.

“Being able to support students when they are in need of help is why we are here,” Charles said.

When asked about the methods she used she explains in a very passionate and heartfelt tone about the rundown of her role and how she helps around campus.

Charles tells us that her job here at Kean is to ensure a safe environment/place where students can feel welcomed and focused on the path of graduation.

But she didn’t say only her department was able to do that but says the connections and relationships she built with other departments on campus and even other organizations outside of it. For example a partnership with the NJ community food bank in Hillside to help provide food for students who are qualified for snap benefits.

She also talks about how she works with other departments on campus to assist students with medical issues and mental health by connecting them to other services that can support them more effectively.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Charles said after that it is ok for students to ask for help.

Cougar Connections is a safe place to secure basic needs for all students and to ensure all students belong.

If students have any questions or want further information, they can contact the Cougar Connections support team at cougarconnections@kean.edu or by phone: 908-737-0530. They are located on the second floor of the CAS building offices 224-228. “Cougars Climb Higher”.

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