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Rebels, tune in to 'Let's Talk UNLV' with Dr. Tanya Crabb and Dr. Sammie Scales. Your express pass to everything UNLV — campus highlights, programs, and the latest buzz. Join us weekly as we chat with student leaders, administrators, and faculty, diving into the core of what makes us Rebels.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Unknown Speaker 0:20
Welcome to another episode of Let's Talk UNLV at public ready, K U N. V 91.5. I'm here with my wonderful host, Dr. Scales. Hey, doctors.
Unknown Speaker 0:30
Hey, Dr. Krauss. Happy to be here with you again today.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
And today we have a most magnificent gift which is the president of project wellness. Jose yellowness. Did I pronounce your last name? Yanis? Yes, yeah, honestly. And I'm so glad to hear to have you here today. So the ways that we typically start is by asking our guests their origin story. How did you get here? How did you get to UNLV? And how did you get to this work? Awesome.
Unknown Speaker 0:55
Well, so I am for I'm always away from Las Vegas. I was born in Camaguey, Cuba. And you know, my whole family was and I came here to Las Vegas when I was four years old. And since then, I've been in Las Vegas. And since my freshman year of high school, I've been interested in becoming a doctor. So I, you know, I did my research, I did my due diligence. And I found out that orthopedic surgery kind of resonated in anesthesiology, as well. And I wanted to stay with my family through college because you know, to be a doctor, you have to go to college and med school and all that. And I came to UNLV. And my very first week of UNLV, actually, my second week, I went to the fair that they have with all the registered student organizations. And I come I stumbled across ad, which is another organization that I'm in and through there I met Dr. Bob, Dr. Daniel Bob, and he is the adviser of project wellness and for AED, and I've known him for a couple years now. And I went to his office one day and he goes, Hey, there's this, there's this opportunity called Project wellness. And it's mental health. And I've been very lucky and fortunate to not have that many like mental health issues. But I know friends and I know a lot of people that have, and I'm a very big advocate for mental health, every single time that someone comes up to me and they need help, I am more than happy to I'm just kind of like a giver person. And it helps me to you know, when I give to people, it helps me also helps the other person. So it's a win win. And he goes, Hey, there's all of the Executive Board are graduating, and I go okay, so I did my due diligence. Again, I searched up what they are, what they do their vision, their short and long term goals. And I applied for the President's position last year in June. It was it was an hour and 10 minute interview. It was the hardest interview I've ever had in my life. They, they asked really tough questions. But I understand why because I feel like everyone knew from the beginning that project wellness would take off and you'd be something really important and vital for this for you and Ovie and its community. And I got the President's position. I was very happy. And since then, two weeks later, I had coffee with Dr. Bob. And these words still resonate with me today. We were at a Starbucks and he goes, you know, Jose, most people talk about mental health and they go, you know, we talked about mental health, and we're gonna do A, B and C. And you know, you ask, okay, but what did you really do? Oh, no, we had coffee, we talked about it. A doctor told me that and he goes, Jose, please don't let this be. We talked about it. And we just had a coffee, please try our hardest, make this organization into something that you would like, and he kind of just let me know, he's like, Hey, look, I mean, I'm your advisor, but you are free to do whatever you'd like. You are free to manage it however you'd like. Your executive board, most of them graduated. So you can choose who you want to be around your executive board. And since that moment, I mean, I've been working really, really hard to make project wellness successful. And most importantly, I'm trying to make project wellness. Something that students can go to people something that students can look up to. And yeah, okay,
Unknown Speaker 4:04
so you mentioned success. Yeah. Well, how do you measure success for project well,
Unknown Speaker 4:08
so I measure success for Project wellness in a multitude of ways, obviously, student input. So, you know, when someone comes up to me, and they asked, you know, hey, I need help, something happened. Most recently, I had someone who their mom recently passed away from cancer. And you know, it's really, really devastating and it'd be devastating for me to if it was my own mother, and I talked to him, I made sure that he was okay. I referred him to Capps. And he told me that he felt better. He told me that the fact that he could talk to a student was really, really important because the thing about Project wellness is that it's student oriented and student led and that will be the main focus or project wellness until I die. I mean, I'm telling you, I can be in med school, I can be a doctor but I want project wants to be student led, because it's so important. Because he told me he goes you know, it's one I think talking to a professional, and it's one thing talking to someone 20 3040 years older than you, but someone that's a student, and that's struggling to the same thing you are. It's it's relatable. And the fact that it was relatable, really, you know, made it made it okay for him. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
So I just have to say, first of all, everything about that just resonates with my soul and in my core. And, you know, we recently were together for the President's mental health Townhall. Yes, we were and project wellness showed up and showed out like they will Yeah, easily identifiable, very engaged. I really like the idea that this is a student focus student run program. And so one of the things that I guess I want to ask you is, how did you recruit like, how did you get your people involved in Project wellness?
Unknown Speaker 5:48
Yeah, so it was really, really hard. What we would do was, I am free Mondays and Wednesdays, I don't have class. I have class Tuesday, Thursday. So every Monday and every Wednesday for, you know, most Mondays and Wednesdays for the past two semesters, I have a table and I have flyers. And I have literature and I would go to the UNLV, free speech area. And I would table there for three, four or five hours, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer, depending on how many things I have during the day. And, you know, people would just come up to me and go, Hey, what's this whole project wellness thing? What's this whole mental health thing? And last semester, I will say, there was significantly less people that came up to my table. Now, when I table this semester, because of the events that happened in December, there is so many people that come up to me and go, Wow, we need this, you know, especially because of the tragic events that happened. And yeah, I just they walk up to me, I give them my two minute elevator pitch. I've never done that in my life before. And I, I had to get that done really fast. Because my first tabling event was last semester before the the week before school started. And it was Lauren and I, which is now my vice president. And she goes okay, well, what are we going to tell these people? And I'm like, wow, that's a really good question. Yeah. And I just started from there. And that's how I get my people. And our website is open project wellness, you want to lead.org and people can join from there, they can ask me questions there. And there's been a lot of people that bump into website one way or another through our QR code, who were just searching up like, you know, mental health project wellness on Google. And they go, Hey, like, what's this? Tell me more about it? Or hey, I'm really interested in joining. Let me know what I have to do. And that's been how I get my people. Yeah. Great.
Unknown Speaker 7:30
Fantastic. So when dealing with Project wellness, you've mentioned a lot about mental health. Yes. And I know in the African American community, there's this huge stigma around you know, if you gone to talk with someone about a mental health issue, lay on their sofa, as they call it, you got to be crazy. So how did you combat those stigmas that goes along with not seek those seeking mental health treatment? How do you combat those? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 7:56
so I combat them in a multitude of ways. One is talking about it. It's it's such a taboo, especially especially during the last 20 years, in just general just talk about mental health. And are you okay? And hey, I'm depressed, I don't feel well. And to have an environment where you can just like in general meetings, or just talking to me personally, having an environment where you can just tell Hey, I'm not okay, is brigstock stemming a lot. But another thing is to normalize it, you know, we do our mental health committee, we do mental health workshops to talk about depression and talk about trauma. And the fact that you're there in that space, knowing more about these topics, kind of takes away the taboo, because it's like anything else, you know, you have to it's a process. And it's not something you should be scared of. It's something that if you have it, speak to a professional if you have it, talk to project wellness, and you know, don't don't suffer in silence, that's another that's another thing that is really important is I tell my members, and I tell people that around me all the time, don't suffer in silence. I'd rather you feel embarrassed for five seconds and tell me hey, something is going on, then you you know, harm yourself or drop out of school or do something that you'll regret. I'd rather you be vulnerable with me. Yeah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 9:13
Yeah, you know, I can definitely relate to that. Because I remember at one time a few years ago, I, you know, I was stuck in that phase two on, you know, you know, I don't want to talk to someone about mental health issues, you know, there's something wrong with me, but, you know, once tragedy happened in your life, which I've experienced, and I actually went to get help, because my family is in another state. And it was just me here alone. So going to seek that help. After I left that first counseling session, I thought to myself, wow, why did it take me so long to get here? Exactly. And not just because of the trauma and a loss of a loved one, but even prior to that go on to just get mental health, you know, care just to have someone to talk to about just different things that you're going through, so I can definitely see that Uh, and I experienced that myself, you know, and that's why I thought, why did it take me so long to get here, stress
Unknown Speaker 10:06
me. And you know, I had, I, it's so amazing when someone just talks to someone and tells them that they're not doing okay, it kind of opens you up. And I feel like there's so many people that are just closed their whole life. And the second that they open up, I mean, I've seen it, they start crying, they start bawling, just these million tons of pressure on their shoulders is just gone. And that's like I said, you have to be vulnerable. And if you didn't go to that counseling session, I bet you'd be worse off now. And, and you know, maybe the first 510 15 minutes, you are nervous, you are shy, you are embarrassed, but after your healing, and that's what matters. That kind of 1015 minute of embarrassment. And nervousness is something that we have to combat, because I feel like that's why people don't get help is because they feel like they'll like I said, get nervous, oh man, like, I, I feel like something's wrong with me. I'm like a weirdo. And if we could just eliminate that on this campus, and everywhere else on the planet, I feel like there's there would be a lot less people, you know, doing things they regret, there'd be a lot less mental health problems, because I feel like mental health is kind of a slippery slope in a way that something tragic happens. And you feel like you're okay, but as time goes on, it gets worse. So another thing that project Wallace is trying to get really good at is kind of finding that, that place where they're not at the dock at the bottom, they're sliding down. And if we get that person when they're sliding down, that means that they're not going to hit rock bottom, and they're not going to fail their classes drop out and do all these things. And that's the problem is these people keep it in for so long. And it just compounds and multiplies and multiplies. And if you could just break out of that comfort zone and just go to someone, then you won't get that that rock bottom, you know, and sometimes it's even just a Hey, it's okay. And I understand I'm taking all these hard classes too. And everything's gonna be okay. Sometimes. That's all you need. All you need. Is that pat on the back sometimes?
Unknown Speaker 12:03
Yeah, you know, that's so powerful. I think that that's important prevention, not just intervention. Yeah, you know, can we catch it early? And can we prevent it from becoming this huge thing? Why does tragedy and trauma have to be the time that you decide to take care of yourself and take care of your mental health? You know, the thing that I would love for you to share, and I'm already familiar with it, is can we talk about the training that you Yes, the project wellness staff has received? Yeah, of
Unknown Speaker 12:28
course. So Dr. Bob, and I had a conversation last June, when we had our coffee. And he told me that, to have an organization like Project wellness, helping students, we have to have some type of training. And all of these active board before me that graduated already, some of our even Kircher coin School of Medicine, which is awesome. So big kudos to them, I want to go there too. And they didn't ask for training, which is the Certified Peer Educator training that that's comprehensive, it's 12 hours, it and essentially, I can get to the details, I can get into the details. But what it is, is how to talk to students, and how to essentially understand how they feel and how to not freeze up. I've had friends in high school who you know, were suicidal or self harming, and they tell me and I freeze up, I don't know what to do. And you know, your heart rate goes up, you're panicking because you don't want to say the wrong things. And NASA prevents that. And that's one training that we have another another team that we have is QPR it's called question Persuade, Refer. It is a suicide prevention training. That was founded in the 1990s by qualche. Paul quintet. And this training is my independent, my favorite, because it's just three things question persuade are for. And people think that talking someone out of self harming or talking someone out of suicide is so difficult, but I feel like what you have to do is you have to kind of get in their mind and kind of realize why they're struggling and not just be like, Oh, it's fine. Oh, it's fine. Oh, you're gonna be fine. No, no, hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that this is happening to you, you know, and you question them if, if it didn't even have to tell you, but if you're kind of sensing that something's wrong, and you get the symptoms, and you get the signs beforehand, ask them question them, Hey, are you okay? Are you thinking about self harm? And most of the time, they'll, they'll tell you, because people don't ask you that, right? And that period of vulnerability, the period where they feel comfortable in you, and them telling you is so important, and then persuading them, it might just be a hey, you know, it's okay. And everything's gonna be okay. And I'll be here for you. And you know, what you're going through right now. You might not think right now, but it's but it's temporary, not permanent. And the thing about suicide is that it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And that's and that's why what I always tell people and you know it right now you're in the midst of it, you're in, you're in, you're in deep, right, you're in the middle of it and you think that there's no way out, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. And that's what we need to tell people is that hey, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. And then refer them this is this is as simple as, hey, we're on campus right now. Capps has a person that's always there. That's kind of like, like a triage. They go in there and they, you know, walk you through it and they help you. Hey, let's walk to that right now. Or if you're on a call with someone, go, hey, you know, tomorrow morning, I'll walk with you, or hey, promised me tonight that you'll be okay. Promise me tonight that you'll be okay. And tomorrow, we will make things right. And that reassurance. And that kind of just you matter is so important. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 15:32
Can you elaborate on the collaborative efforts between UNLV UNLV students, leaders, and the university in response to what happened here on December?
Unknown Speaker 15:42
Yeah. So essentially project wellness. And it's funny enough, there's another training that that called, that's called SPR, which is perfectly kind of answering your question, it's skills for psychological recovery. And it's a trauma based training. It is a training that psychologists use for veterans that have PTSD and stuff like that, and traumatic events. And essentially, what it is, is if someone comes up to me and goes, Hey, you know, I was in the building when it happened, and I don't know what to do. And you know, when I see the building, or when I think of it, I have nightmares. SPR has these grounding techniques. And these techniques, what they do is that essentially calm your body down and make you focus on other things. So you can battle, what you're feeling and what you're thinking right now. And that's essentially what we're doing, helping the students for the December 6 shooting, because, unfortunately, my entire executive board was in the building, when it happened, we all had organic chemistry together. And we heard the gunshots, we ran down, you know, and it was a traumatic experience. And I myself, you know, when I hear sirens, still, I get a little jittery, I get a little nervous. And doing this training, after the fact, actually helped me and I'm doing these counting techniques myself. So I know it works as a student, you know, and sometimes it might not work for other students, but for most literally every single student that I've given these grani techniques, and I've explained what I've learned myself has helped. And that's what we're doing for the people. And, you know, it's another thing, like I said, the relatability, right. I wasn't, I was in the building when it happened. And I and I experienced it. So if I can tell someone, even in my classroom, or that were in the building, when it happened, hey, I was in there, too. And I experienced a, b and c and D, and this is what I did to stop it. That is That is amazing. The fact that I can relate to these students to this traumatic event, and just tell them that everything's gonna be okay, because I myself was not okay. And I myself had to get help and get, you know, these trainings done. And yeah, it's just, it's amazing. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 17:45
You know, there's something beautiful about being able to share live experiences. And also, I think you create a sense of safety. When you share I was not okay to Yeah, exactly. So it's not that so. So these things happen. And I'm one of those people that these things happen to. One of the things that I was thinking about with that townhall meeting that we had, was that beautiful marriage of all the resources for the students. And can you think of a moment during that meeting that really resonated with you that made you realize the worth of the work that you're doing right now?
Unknown Speaker 18:18
You know, well, first of all, let me say that townhall was a complete success. And I was so happy that everyone there was supportive, and everyone there kind of had their talks and everything. And I will say, the moment where I realized that it was successful, was when it was two minutes before 330. And that room was filled to the brim. And I saw so many students lined up so many students ready. And that moment, I mean, I, you know, I get teared up just thinking about it. Because the fact that the students realize the importance of mental health. And they were like, You know what, I'm going to take time out of my busy day with all these exams, all these professors, all these classes and go to this event was mind blowing for me. And on top of that, you know, we had 15 Project wellness educators in there that were one each table. And what their job was, was when they had a question when they had an activity, they would kind of be because you know, it's in a table where there's eight people, and sometimes it's a little awkward, especially since you know, there's people that you don't know. So essentially what we're what we do is to talk first and let other people talk as well, but just kind of create a comfortable environment. And another thing that I really am proud of is that every single time that you talk to a project wellness student educator or the executive board about anything, and it's completely confidential, from A to Z, and that is something that is really important as well, because in that town hall, Dr. Andy Wiseman said in the beginning, hey, what stays in his town hall stays in this town hall, and to be respectful of your conversations, and I was walking around that town hall and everyone was talking about What happened everyone was talking about not even just a shooting just in their life traumatic experiences, and the fact that it was such a comfortable environment where the project was educators and the people in there could talk about their experiences and talk about their struggles and their traumas was, I mean, it was a light bulb. I was like, wow, where was this before? Where was this kind of interactive, because I know a town hall is kind of, you know, you sit down, and there's a panel of experts. But the cool thing about this town hall, like I said, is that it was interactive, and people could talk. And the thing about and, you know, unfortunately, post pandemic, that is something really, really hard to do is to relate to students and just to talk, there's so many students that lost like their, their conversational skills. And there's so many students that just, you know, didn't get used to talking to people. So they're, they're very lonely, they they, and that's another thing is, you know, if you have a mental health condition, you have to talk to someone, right. And if they're lonely, and it's post pandemic, and they still don't know how to talk to people, it gets even worse, and a panel wouldn't help there, they would sit down, and they would not talk to anyone, again, listen to these resources, which is great, but then still not talk to anyone. So the fact that the townhall was interactive, you can talk to someone face to face and combat your struggles was absolutely incredible. And I am so happy. I would be you know, more than happy to do it 10 times over. And if I could relive that day, I would you know, every single day in my life, and I just loved it. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 21:26
And what was a lack of centralized health resources on campus? Make it challenging for students? And how does project wellness aim to bridge that gap? Can you repeat the question? In what ways does the lack of centralized health resources on campus make it challenging for students? And how does project wellness aim to bridge that gap?
Unknown Speaker 21:50
So the lack of centralized health resources on campus, it does make it challenging for students, I will say because like, you know, UNLV doesn't have like a hospital. I mean, we have resources on campus, right. But it's not like we have, like I said, like the UNLV Hospital, which you can get anything that you ever want, right there, we have, our resources are kind of scattered. And that's something that project wellness is trying to fix by literally, what we did was we printed out a trifold with every single on and off campus resource. In the Las Vegas Valley. On the back, it has a QR code for Instagram, which has even more resources. And that is where we kind of bridge this gap, because there's so many students, because there's a lot of I will say you want to V is at the forefront, because I know a lot of universities that have a third or even a fifth of what we have, and you want to be. But the thing is, is that if people don't know where it is, if people don't know, you know, if it exists, then it's not going to help any students at all. So like I said that trifold I mean, every single time we table that trifold is the first to go, we have it is it is incredible, we have printed out 150 of these tri folds, and in two hours are gone. Because the students who are like wow, everything I ever need, and just one paper, that's incredible, because if you're in a mental health problem, if you're in a mental health crisis, and you're struggling, you don't want to go to Google and search up mental health resources for half an hour. Because you have other things to worry about. And you have other things to do and you're scared, you know, you want you want to get help. And the thing about you know, mental health is that sometimes you get into a depression and you get lazy and you just don't want to do it. And the fact that we have this trifle that has everything has a phone number, it has a short description of what everything is, it has a website. And then like I said, it has everything you need. So like project, Wallace is bridging that gap by giving students these trifold and giving students these literature's to essentially promote the resources on campus.
Unknown Speaker 23:45
You know, what I hear you're saying is project wellness is promoting connection, exactly, and almost every avenue that they show up, and whether it's a town hall meeting, where you have an opportunity to connect with other students, whether it's when you meet with the students, and they have an opportunity to connect with Project wellness, and to be seen and to be validated and an understanding that they're not alone and this resource that you discuss, I think it's really powerful, because part of what the resource does is it connects them back to the university as well because you're right. Unless you're in a crisis, oftentimes you don't know what your resources are, even if you've heard about the resources, you know, your brains not thinking of that and that immediacy, so to have that information, immediately accessible to you and to your point, you know, if you're in if you're in a high emotional mental health crisis situation, like for example, depression, people don't understand that, you know, depression, it's, it's really draining. It's like waking up with a boulder on your back every day and imagine trying to move through life with a giant boulder on your back. It just makes it hard to move forward to the next thing. So by knowing where the help is, it takes away one of the steps. One of the barriers is Back to seeking the appropriate support.
Unknown Speaker 25:03
One last question for me, for students this listen to this podcast now. And it's maybe the first time hearing about Project wellness tell us where you housed you're on campus.
Unknown Speaker 25:13
So we don't have like a specific building that has like a project wellness plastered over it. But we do have our website project Wallace unlv.org. And that has every single resource you need, and has an Events tab where has all of our events for the throughout the semester and has a good Help tab, which literally, if you're in a mental health crisis, all you have to do is put your first and last name, your email, and one of our trained project one, this was a cutting board members will reach out to you in less than 24 hours, and we will schedule a one on one on campus. And it has, like I said it has everything you know has an about us as a home. And you can actually RSVP for these events. So we actually have our second general meeting this Thursday, from 530 to 6:30pm, and Cbc a 112. And if you want to know more about Project wellness, if you want to meet me and shake my hand or shake the other project wellness executive boards hands, just let me know. And I will be more than happy to help. Fantastic.
Unknown Speaker 26:11
And if you Google and look for Project wellness on the news project wellness has been making the news quite a bit. You know, there was an article in the Journal Sentinel, you were featured at the townhall as well. So it sounds like you're gaining noteworthiness Which is wonderful, because you know, that's part of what's getting rid of the stigma is showing up in those spaces in the places where people live. Exactly. So typically at this point, we let our guests have the last word. Okay, what would you like to share, as is there are there any final thoughts, any final resources that you would like to share? Well, I
Unknown Speaker 26:50
will say thank you for you guys, time. Thank you so much. But if I could say one thing I would say, Do not give up. I would say do not give up and get help if you need to. And don't be embarrassed to get help. If you are embarrassed to get help, come to project wellness. And we will we are an open arms we will come and we will come and we will help you as much as we can. And another thing, please, if you or anyone you know needs help, all you have to do is go to our website and get that Get Help tab and all you have to do is put your first and last name and a short description of what you need. And our executive board. We don't have a million you know, we don't have all the time on our hands. But we will make sure that we will get to you that we will help you. And if we think that you need another resource on campus or off campus, we will make sure to get that to you. But if I could say one last thing, don't give up. You got this. We're strong. And you know we will recover.
Unknown Speaker 27:45
Will you remind them how to find you on the on the internet? Yeah, Project
Unknown Speaker 27:48
wellness, you want to v.org and that's it. Wonderful.
Unknown Speaker 27:52
I am so grateful to have you as guest I you know I was looking forward to this interview because I know that you have a lot of wonderful things to share. And thank you for all the work you do on behalf of our students. Thank you so much.
Dr. Renee Watson 28:07
For more or less talk to UNLV Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook and let's talk about all the podcast Twitter and let's talk UNLV and Instagram. Let's talk UNLV
Transcribed by https://otter.ai