When the Rutgers School of Health Professions Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation & Counseling Professions opened a mental health clinic in January 2025, it expanded the reach of SHP’s pro bono clinics to include behavioral health, filling an important gap in providing a continuum of care to its surrounding communities.
When Aubrey Daniels, assistant professor in psychiatric rehabilitation and counseling, arrived at Rutgers in 2022, she brought experience as a clinic supervisor. Discussions about the possibilities of opening a mental health clinic for students and community members started during her interview, and Daniels immediately got to work.
“I had a lot of drive and passion for getting this up and running at Rutgers, so it’s been an expedited process,” said Daniels, who is also the clinic director. Daniels spent a year brainstorming and “dreaming,” followed by another year of meeting with other Rutgers and community partners while setting up the background details.
She worked with Anthony Zazzarino, associate professor in psychiatric rehabilitation, relying on his 10-plus years of experience at Rutgers to identify barriers and needs for mental health care. They started by surveyings (SHP) students and found a clear preference for more long-term services than were available through other campus resources.
Many of the available free services for students and community members were useful in crisis, but did not provide the continuity of regular visits or a familiar provider. Staffed by master’s degree students in counseling and counselor education and supervision, with faculty supervising and seeing clients, the mental health clinic bridges this gap with both individual and group counseling services.
The clinic began seeing patients via telehealth visits in January 2025 and opened its doors for in-person services later that month. It also supports counseling groups for members with LGBTQIA+ identities, depression and anxiety, and teaches skills for emotional and social success.
As SHP expands its partnerships with the community, its holistic view informs every step. The broadened network of care allows the school to not only meet patients where they are in their health care journey, but to better understand their needs. It also helps students gain a deeper understanding of the communities they serve.
“We did community outings from the first semester,” said Alexis Lashley, speech language pathology student who has worked in the program’s Newark clinic. “At the clinic, we’re working with people who might not have health insurance. Populations who might not otherwise be able to get services.”
Through those experiences, she said, she’s learned to better understand the challenges her patients face and the role the clinic plays in meeting those needs.
With the addition of the mental health clinic, Daniels meets monthly with a group of clinic directors from the network of therapy programs to share insights and updates.
This includes the Health Outreach Practice Experience (HOPE) clinic in Plainfield, where physician assistant students can gain clinical experience providing primary care, the speech-language pathology clinic, and the Community Participatory Physical Therapy Clinic and Newark Therapy Services for physical and occupational therapy students, all located in the underserved city of Newark.
The connection between clinics helps community members to reduce potential barriers to care they may experience in a disparate health system.
“The more we come together, the better clients can be served,” Daniels said.
In building a network of community-based clinics, SHP has positioned itself to provide an interprofessional education for its clinicians. Students from different disciplines not only learn from each other, but gain first-hand experience being part of a care team.
Students in the nutrition program, for example, have been able to visit HOPE clinic to integrate with the care there and support patients living with diabetes or improving their health through diet.
Perhaps the strongest example of this collaborative, interdisciplinary work can be found at the Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Sciences’ Summer Head Injury clinic.
After encountering a number of patients with head injuries assessed to have multiple needs, speech- language pathology Professor Kelly Pena began the Summer Head Injury clinic in 2021 to allow students from multiple therapy disciplines to collaborate on this specialty patient care.
This collaborative work benefits patients as well, allowing them the level of coordinated care one might expect at a larger health care facility. And seeing how different disciplines work in the room provides a better understanding of how each discipline contributes to recovery.
“I’ll be a better clinician having this experience,” said Miguel Santana, a physical therapy student. “If I print out a home exercise program, I’ll be more considerate about whether the patient has difficulty reading, making sure they understand, have pictures—just taking into account all these little things that can impact someone’s health.”
