Coeur d’Alene, ID: This winter, Northwest College Support – a program providing mental health, life skills, and educational support for college students in north Idaho- is celebrating their 10 year anniversary of the program’s opening. Over the course of a decade, Northwest College Support has helped nearly 300 young adults and college students ages 18-25+ by providing individual and group therapy, academic coaching, mentorship, supervised housing, and other wrap-around services. Northwest College Support’s objective is to guide a path for college-capable young adults to find success, even though those individuals have mental health needs or learning challenges.  

Program Founder and Owner Dan Hanks, M.Ed., Ed.S, LPC, says “Working with college students in 2022, I feel like a firefighter who can only help manage the flames in my area, yet can see the widening of the flames all around. The needs of our young people are growing in this country, and it is an exceptionally difficult time to be a college student. COVID has turned up the volume on an already chronic mental health crisis among our young adults. While the needs are significant, Northwest College Support is committed to providing a team of guides, a meaningful experience, and a supportive environment to each and every student we work with. Over the past two years we have expanded our capacity significantly, opening the Gemba Gap Program in Boise, expanding our Initiate Northwest services to adults over the age of 25, and continuing to expand and improve our Northwest College Support offerings. While I am excited about what we have accomplished, there is little time to pause, and an imminent need to act and support students who need our help right now.” 

About Northwest College Support

Starting in 2012, Northwest College Support has provided services for college students needing support with learning differences or disabilities, life skill development, and mental health needs. The program, based in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, also offers similar services in Boise, Idaho through the Gemba Gap Program. Both program locations provide dorm-style living environments, life skills coaching and mentoring, academic coaching, individual counseling, and other supportive services (psychiatry, high school completion, nutritional support, psychological testing, etc) to young adult clients who come from all over the country as they attend college, trade schools, or pursue vocational paths in the Spokane- Coeur d’Alene, and Boise area.