ASSEMBLY HIGHER EDUCATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 3007

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  DECEMBER 14, 2020

      The Assembly Higher Education Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 3007 with committee amendments.

     As amended, this bill requires institutions of higher education, beginning with the 2021-2022 academic year, to ensure that all students have access to campus-based mental health care programs and services.  Under the bill, each institution must provide newly-enrolled students with information concerning the location and availability of those programs and services.

      The bill also requires each institution to establish a 24-hour telephone hotline for students.  Under the bill, the hotline will receive and respond to calls from students seeking counseling for depression, anxiety, stress, or other psychological or emotional tension, trauma, or disorder.  The operators of the hotline will seek to identify those callers who should be referred to additional counseling services, and to provide such referrals.  The number for the hotline is required to be posted in each dormitory, library, and student center, and any other facility or area on campus that the institution determines to be appropriate.

      Under the bill as amended, in lieu of the requirement to establish a 24-hour hotline, an institution may instead provide students with the hotline numbers for either the National Suicide Prevention Hotline or the NJ Hopeline and post those hotline numbers throughout the campus.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amended the bill to provide that, in lieu of establishing their own 24-hour hotline, an institution of higher education may satisfy the hotline requirement by providing each student with the hotline number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline or the NJ Hopeline.  In addition to providing students with the hotline numbers, the institution must also post the hotline numbers in each dormitory, library, and student center, and any other facility or area on campus that the institution determines to be appropriate.