The Bridge Peer Counseling Center
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The Bridge Peer Counseling Center (usually referred to as simply The Bridge) is a student-run 24-hour peer-counseling center at Stanford University, offering free confidential counselling as well as a comprehensive information and referral service. It primarily serves the undergraduate and graduate student communities of Stanford), but is also open to the general public. The drop-in service is available from 9am to midnight.
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[edit] History
The Bridge was founded in 1971, under the supervision of Dr. Vincent D'Andrea[1], a staff psychiatrist at the Cowell Student Health Services, and was originally intended as a confidential drug-counseling center. Over the years, it became a general peer-counseling center.
The name was inspired by the Simon and Garfunkel song "Bridge Over Troubled Water," which had topped the Billboard charts the year before.
[edit] Operation
The Bridge is staffed entirely by undergraduate and graduate student volunteers. The service is anchored by four live-in counselors, who cover the night shifts and take on leading organizing roles as administrators and mentors.
All counselors take a ten-week course that covers basic counseling methods and surveys a wide variety of campus health issues. This class is taught by a full-time staff psychologist at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), with the assistance of Bridge counselors.
The Bridge, although formally registered as a student group, is almost entirely self-funded. Every year since 1971, its counsellors have organized the Stanford Spring Faire, a three-day-long fine arts and crafts fair that takes place over Mother's Day weekend in May.
[edit] Notable alumni
- Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, 2006-
- Peter Salovey, Professor of Psychology, Yale University, 1986-