The assessment process in campus community mental health programs.

In developing campus community mental health programs, assessment is a more complicated and holistic process as compared with assessment within an individual therapeutic relationship. It includes a global assessment of the college as an ongoing social system, as well as an analysis of its present and past phases of evolution as an institution. Mental health staff must understand the way in which they affect others within the college community and the perceptions which others hold regarding the mental health program. They must also scrutinize their own dynamics as these affect their reactions to individual community members and to the core value orientations of the college.