CogWell @ Penn is a student group committed to building a campus-wide support network by providing Active Listening Skills Trainings. The training sessions are offered to Penn student groups and help strengthen the students' ability to cope and be resilient with the challenges of college life and help support their friends. CogWell is a Student Activities Council (SAC) recognized student group, a member of the Penn Wellness organization and the Penn Undergraduate Health Coalition.
Our one-day, four-hour training consists of an interactive learning session of important skills associated with Active Listening and also provide campus resources such as CAPS. This training allows students the opportunity to become CogWell student leaders. For the past 10 years, the training has been created and conducted by our Training Director, Barbra Berley-Mellits, MSW. JHP Associate Director, Rabbi Ephraim Levin, is advisor to CogWell.
After recognizing the suicide rates on Penn’s campus were increasing, I decided to join CogWell. CogWell’s goal is to help students better support themselves and one another through learning active listening skills. Working as the president of CogWell has helped me to disassemble the “Penn Face” and give students the tools they need to deal with the many challenges of being a college student. More personally, CogWell has helped me strengthen my own relationships, for it has given me the necessary tools to communicate more effectively. It is imperative that college students learn these active listening skills because it helps to decrease the mental health stigma on many college campuses while also creating a space for Penn students to speak openly about the things they are struggling with.”
Excerpts from an interview with one of CogWell’s proud partners, Louis Piatetsky, a Decorated Purple Heart Veteran of the United States Navy:
Active Listening to me is you experiencing what they are experiencing now and that you can relate it to what they are doing and what they could do. It has to be active and current. It is very important because when you are dealing with a person in active crisis you need to be active. As a person who has been through PTSD and anyone who has experienced something similar to that it seems people don’t listen and things go in one ear and out the other. You have to make sure you are focusing on what the issue really is and not opinions of something you have nothing to do with like why this or why that.
I was raised to leave the earth better than you found it. I believe it’s important to let students know they should choose life over suicide. CogWell is a bridge that brings together people who are compassionate without forcing anything so that you know there are people out there that can help you. I consider it a gentle intervention because if you push too hard or too fast someone will shut down. It’s the whole generalization of cognizant wellness.”
