A white van is parked on a Boston side street outside Northeastern University Hillel, a Jewish student center. Like an ice cream truck, its back window is rolled open. Inside is a small screen attached to a moveable arm.
Connected via the monitor is a licensed clinical social worker. She’s waiting to meet with any student who wants to walk up and talk.
The van is part of a new wellness initiative spearheaded by the Ruderman Family Foundation, a Boston-based Jewish philanthropic organization. It’s deploying these vans to area campuses to support college students with free mental health services during these particularly charged political times.
The effort is especially geared toward Jewish students who have experienced antisemitism or feelings of isolation, according to foundation leaders.
“We’ve seen through our own kids what the struggles have been,” said Sharon Shapiro, the foundation’s trustee and community liaison. “A lot of the Jewish students feel like they have to kind of hide their Judaism.”
But, Shapiro said, any college student, no matter their faith or cultural background, can access the free therapy.
“We would never, I think, have a program that would turn anybody away,” she said.
Using $600,000 of foundation funding, two vans have been deployed to local campuses: one is parked at Northeastern five days a week and another at Harvard — with the support of Harvard Chabad — once a week. The foundation says the vans can provide up to 20 counseling sessions a day, Monday through Friday, and sometimes with evening hours.
The organization is in talks to expand the initiative to other Massachusetts campuses, Shapiro said.
The launch of the therapy vans comes at a tense time for universities. Schools are still reeling from the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and the Trump administration is waging an all-out battle against higher education — including imposing steep funding cuts — under the banner of combatting antisemitism.
Half of all Americans think antisemitism is a serious problem — a five-fold increase from 20 years ago — according to Gallup data from 2024. And more than half of Jewish Americans say they are inclined to hide their religious affiliation.
Federal immigration agents have detained international students for speaking out against the war in Gaza. Early this year, The Trump administration formed a federal task force on antisemitism that targeted universities for investigation.
“It’s a very fraught time to be a college student right now,” said Melissa Belkin, a licensed clinical social worker contracted by the TeleHealth Van.
Students living and studying amid these tensions feel the impact, she added.
“Sometimes, you know, the student might not have a direct impact from antisemitism but there might just be tension on campus that’s affecting them,” Belkin said.
The walk-up vans are the brainchild of Dion Rambo, an LA county commissioner and entrepreneur in the behavioral health space who founded his company in June 2021. He’s deployed similar vans to Los Angeles to support families struggling with housing insecurity and addiction and to military bases across the U.S. to help Afghan refugees.
“I think we underestimate the power of support,” Rambo said. “It’s really just, hey, if you have something you want to talk about we’re here.”
The service is versatile. Students can either walk up and talk to a mental health counselor on the screen through the open window, or they can step inside the van for a more private session. They can also schedule an appointment for later — and they aren’t required to provide their name.
It can be an easier option than turning to student health services, Rambo said. One survey from the University of Michigan found that half of students didn’t know how to access campus mental health resources.
“The TeleHealth Van is just kind of sitting here with the same resources for them,” Rambo said.
Stationing the van along a busy campus thoroughfare allows it to act as a “bridge” to quickly connect students with a therapy provider right where they’re likely to pass by, Rambo said. It also provides privacy, which can be hard to come by for students who share a dorm room.
During a class changeover on a recent Tuesday, Northeastern students spilled out onto the sidewalk. Rambo and his team fanned out with clipboards and flyers. They greeted those students passing by and handed out information about the van. Some students took a flyer and kept moving. Others paused to chat.
When two students from India stopped to learn more, they shared the challenges they faced moving to the U.S.
“A lot of people who’ll be traveling from other countries, they are missing their families,” said Sai Praharshith, a Northeastern graduate student who recently moved to the U.S. for his studies. “It’s kind of a bit hard.”
Praharshith said stumbling upon a free therapy service during his first week of class has been comforting. Though he didn’t stay to talk with a social worker that particular afternoon, he committed to scheduling an appointment in the future.
“That would really help me,” he said.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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