Parents, partners, and families play an important role in supporting the
mental health of their student. The Penn Parents website provides useful
information for supporting undergraduates. The Graduate Student Center’s
website lists an array of resources available to graduate, and professional
students. Similarly, the College of Liberal and Professional Studies
provides information about resources for non-traditional students.
Through these and other sources, Penn already provides assistance to families
of undergraduate, graduate and professional students—particularly
international students—and we should maintain that practice. Our educational
and communication efforts should extend to parents and families
from the very beginning of a student’s contact with Penn through graduation.
The new website we have recommended should include information
that is of particular use to parents, partners, and other family members and
include updates and announcements of new programs (such as those offered
during Family Weekend, through the Penn Parents Program, CAPS
webinars, etc.) The new website and the existing websites for CAPS,
Penn Parents, the College of Liberal and Professional Studies, and the
Graduate Student Center should be utilized as vehicles to provide educa- tional information from campus and external experts on identifying signs
of distress, research on resiliency and mindfulness, and other topics that
would be helpful to families.