The phone number of the University of Missouri counseling center will now be printed on the backs of new student ID cards. The printing of the phone number coincides, in part, with a new 24-hour hotline number for the center, and will join numbers printed for the university police department and safe-ride program.

According to the University of Missouri’s student newspaper, The Maneater, the inspiration behind the addition of the number to IDs began with Active Minds, a mental health awareness organization on campus. the group felt that the counseling center was an important outlet and wanted to connect students to helpful resources.

Information about the counseling center is introduced to students on orientation tours, but the goal for printing the phone number on university IDs is to make that information more easily accessible to students.

The university’s counseling center is contracting with ProtoCall, a company that specializes in providing after-hours services to university counseling and mental health centers. ProtoCall offers services to some 95 university counseling programs nationwide serving more than 1.5 million students.

Per the company’s website, ProtoCall provides telephonic intake assistance, brief stabilization and support and resource information services to callers. ProtoCall’s employees will provide the assistance needed at the time of the call, while recording accurate safety assessment and stabilization information to help the university’s day staff follow up with the student seamlessly.

Students that call the hotline after after normal business hours between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. will have the option to leave a message with the counseling center or be routed to a ProtoCall counselor if the caller wishes to speak to someone immediately. Any undergraduate or graduate student currently enrolled at the University of Missouri is eligible to use the 24-hour service through ProtoCall at no cost.