Students looking to relieve stress over a roommate, midterms, relationships or any other anxiety that comes with college life can find a quick and thorough way to do so with BadgerSpill.
The program began at UW-Madison in 2009 and has since spread to more than 200 campuses across the United States, according to BadgerSpill President Lauren Hammer. Students looking to “spill” their worries confidentially can submit to the website, and a handful of trained student supporters will respond in a day or two with advice and resources.
“Our values are definitely just making sure that we are sincere in all of our responses,” Hammer said. “We try to help out people to the best of our ability by writing quality responses and also keeping confidentiality.”
Hammer and another BadgerSpill leader, Jayne Hurd, presented the program’s budget request for the upcoming fiscal year at the Student Services Finance Committee meeting last Thursday. The proposed budget includes increased salaries for two positions and an increased advertising line, with other budget lines staying stable or decreasing.
The program currently boasts more than 300 supporters responding to the spills received. Supporters undergo one hour of training, Hammer said, where they are taught what an appropriate response looks like and asked to respond to a practice Spill.
“It seems like you’re really stressed out about your physics midterm; you’re having a lot of anxiety because of it and it’s making you less productive during the day,” Hammer said, detailing what a good response to a Spill about exam stress would look like. The rest of the response leaves a few tips for alleviating that stress and points to resources like University Health Services to give the student even more options.
Hammer said some students spill four or five times a week, and all responses are vetted by the program’s vice presidents of confidentiality.
She added that for many students, the quick turnaround that BadgerSpill responders provide is a much speedier process than waiting to see a UHS therapist.
“Booking appointments can be very difficult too, sometimes they’re booked out for two weeks,” Hammer said. “But we have the immediate response of, ‘Yeah, you have a problem that you’re going through? We don’t want you to have to wait a super long time, we want to address it now so you can feel more at ease about the situation you’re going through.’”
Members of SSFC approved BadgerSpill’s budget at their Monday meeting.
