Grantee Types: Garrett Lee Smith Campus

The University of Alaska Anchorage Integrated Suicide Prevention Initiative aims to implement a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable approach to suicide prevention across the University of Alaska Anchorage campus community. The UAA ISPI will augment and coordinate existing suicide prevention efforts to reach faculty, staff, and students across campus.

Drawing upon years of strategic planning guided by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center Strategic Planning Process, UAA ISPI, led by the UAA Center for Behavioral Health Research and Services, will bring together relevant campus units to accomplish five primary goals:

1. increase training opportunities related to suicide prevention and mental health promotion on the UAA campus for staff, students, and faculty;
2. increase collaboration among logical campus partners for purposes of delivering suicide prevention messages;
3. increase the availability and use of relevant educational materials to improve suicide risk reduction;
4.  increase help-seeking among students in a non-stigmatizing environment; and
5.  increase promotion of the Alaska Careline, part of the National Suicide Prevention Hotline network.

UAA ISPI’s three primary strategies to accomplish these goals are: 1) the development of an Advisory Council to guide a comprehensive and coordinated suicide prevention and mental health promotion effort on campus; 2) implementation of targeted faculty, staff, and student gatekeeper trainings that lead to a better understanding of suicide risk factors, greater identification of students at risk, improved student referral for mental health and suicide intervention, and availability of peer-supports; and 3) development and implementation of a campus campaign to promote help-seeking behaviors and reduce stigma. All campus members, including over 16,000 students and 2,700 staff and faculty employees, will be targeted with gatekeeper training and campus campaign efforts. Assessment measures will include, but are not limited to, number of individuals trained, satisfaction and knowledge among trained individuals, breadth of impact of campus campaign materials, and changes in campus climate with regard to student help-seeking and stigma surrounding mental health. The initiative’s activities and evaluation efforts will be respectful of and designed to be appropriate for the diversity of the campus community, being sensitive to and appropriate for the gender, age, sexual orientation, and ethnicity of each target group. As the initiative will work directly with numerous campus partners and existing efforts, its programs, resources, and Advisory Council will have the sustainability necessary to continue beyond the SAMHSA-funded project period. UAA ISPI efforts will also be greatly enhanced and supported through its ability to work collaboratively with Garrett Lee Smith grantees across the state of Alaska.

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) is a public high-technology research university serving approximately 7,600 graduate and undergraduate students located in Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville is a military and technology influenced community which is home to Redstone Arsenal, NASA, and a major number of high-tech companies comprising our unique culture. UAH is a key participant in one of the nation’s major international centers for advanced technological research. Following a tragic shooting in 2010, the university, as a whole, became significantly more aware of mental health issues. Yet, trauma and grief also include defense mechanisms of denial, minimization, and rationalization which prevent the acknowledgement of problems and need for and acceptance of services. The Counseling Center of UAH has increased staffing and outreach to students and coordinating efforts with faculty to meet the mental health needs of students. Campus wide, universal, and integrated training to overcome stigma and promote acceptance of counseling and utilization of services is a primary objective of our suicide prevention program grant. First year students and under-represented students, minorities, veterans, international students, and those with disabilities are our target populations. The goals of the UAH Suicide Prevention Program are 1) to increase the number of students seen for mental health services by 10% through a comprehensive and total organization approach to gatekeeper training; 2) to improve our communication and processes internally through a Suicide Prevention Task Force; 3) to expand and improve services to our target population to be served under this project including first year students, and under-represented, minorities, veterans, international students, and those with disabilities; 4) to develop a comprehensive substance abuse/prevention program through the hiring of a Nationally Certified Addiction Counselor and networking with community resources; 5) to reduce stigma through training and campus events such as the anti-stigma “Hope Lives On” campaign, campus booths, and educational efforts; and 6) to promote the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Crisis Services of North Alabama (CSNA) HELPline through visual displays, web page postings, and campus wide announcements along with promotions to contract with CSNA for training and on-call services.

The University at Buffalo seeks to address suicidal and other harmful behaviors through a comprehensive prevention approach. Project UB WELL ((University at Buffalo WellnessEnhanced Living and Learning) involves a wide range of campus and community resources and constituencies, such as faculty, staff, students, parents, and local mental health services to foster an environment where self-care, connectedness, and knowledge of resources are valued and readily accessed or implemented. Through funding from this grant a variety of stakeholders will be trained in QPR in order to identify persons at risk and in need of treatment. Training of nonclinician “gatekeepers” will convey the message that the entire community is charged with helping other individuals within it. The Inside-Out educational programs aim to normalize experiences of emotional distress, promote and support protective factors, and make students active participants in creating a public awareness campaign by encouraging them to use art, theatre, dance, writing, visual media, and class discussion to engage in dialogue and expression related to emotional wellness. The expertise of local psychiatric emergency personnel in treating acutely suicidal individuals will be shared with campus psychologists, social workers, health educators, and healthcare providers via developing curricula and in vivo training. The collaboration also involves using hospital data to identify the student groups who are at risk for suicidal behavior and other mental illnesses to inform public awareness campaigns and clinical interventions on campus and to develop protocols for a more coordinated response between campus and the local community. All of the new initiatives will be optimized by utilizing technology and media that is in keeping with how students typically access information.

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The purpose of the Tulane University Mental Health Initiative is to achieve a comprehensive expansion of its existing programs regarding the awareness and prevention of suicide and attempted suicide, and to enhance referral services for at-risk students with mental, substance use, or behavioral disorders. Tulane has good points of entry for suicide prevention through student organizations, clubs, athletics, Greek organizations, and service-learning. With an award from the SAMHSA Campus Suicide Prevention Grant program, we will build a stronger infrastructure of protective factors to dissuade students from considering suicide. Specifically, the Tulane University Mental Health Initiative will significantly enhance resources on campus to reduce stigma related to mental illness, provide early intervention services to students in distress or at-risk of suicide or other mental health issues, and reduce the incidence of completed suicide and suicide attempts. While undergraduate students are the primary focus population for this project, graduate, medical, and professional school students will also be included – more than 13,000 students annually. In addition, the project will pay particular attention to the special needs of our LGBT, disabled, and veteran students. The development of this grant was guided by the Jed Foundation Suicide Prevention Model, and the project will be driven by the National Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards in Health and Health Care and the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. Student input was garnered through focus groups, individual meetings and review.The project goals will be accomplished through increased gatekeeper training for members of the university community, a social marketing campaign, the implementation of a task force to coordinate mental health programming, and the development of educational programs for students, faculty, staff, families, and friends. The achievement of these goals will lead to an improved and more efficient delivery system for mental health resources and information. By increasing the overall awareness related to our campus mental health care and realigning all the various programs and services, Tulane University anticipates an outcome of increased early intervention for students at risk. Under the direction of a new Senior Health Educator position, the Tulane University Mental Health Initiative will partner with the Baton Rouge Crisis Intervention Center, the state-funded office of the Louisiana Partnership for Youth Suicide Prevention. In addition, the project’s internal partners begin with the Board of Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund and the Office of the President, and include offices within the Division of Student Affairs, as well as additional university entities, among them the Department of Athletics.The ultimate goal of Tulane’s Mental Health Initiative is the elimination of suicide and suicide attempts on the university campus.

Tufts Community Cares: A Suicide Prevention Program was initiated in October 2008 to expand comprehensive campus efforts to promote help seeking and access to resources among students at risk of suicide. The grant goals are (1) increase awareness of signs and symptoms of mental health difficulties, student distress, and suicide risk; (2) decrease barriers to help-seeking, including stigma, lack of awareness, misinformation, or other factors that inhibit students’ utilization of mental health or other supports; and (3) develop an “ethic of care” within the campus community that builds the capacities of gatekeepers (students, faculty, staff, and families) to effectively facilitate access to counseling and other campus resources among students experiencing mental health difficulties.

Since the inception of our grant, we have collected a variety of data, which has helped us better understand the prevalence of student mental health issues, attitudes and beliefs about help seeking, and utilization of both informal and formal sources of help among specific groups of students. We have participated in the 2007 and 2010 Healthy Minds study; conducted focus groups with students from six Tufts cultural centers (Africana, Asian-American, International, Latino, Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender, and Women’s); interviewed faculty, staff, administrators, and student leaders; and added mental health questions to the 2009 and 2010 sophomore and senior surveys collected by the Office of Institutional Research.

Using a strategic planning process, we designed our own gatekeeper training model tailored to the particular needs of our campus. Our program integrates suicide prevention into broader outreach and training efforts in order to foster more opportunities for dissemination and to convey the message that suicide prevention is part of our overall mental health outreach efforts. There are two basic training modules for faculty/staff and peer leaders, and content has been adapted to fit the unique attitudes and roles of the gatekeepers in relation to student mental health concerns. Participant evaluations are used as formative tools to continually modify the training. Since the fall of 2009 we have trained about 700 Tufts students and 285 faculty/staff members.Working closely with campus cultural centers, residence halls, athletic groups, academic deans, advisors, and student health advocacy groups, we have provided a variety of other outreach and awareness activities, such as workshops, discussions, and student panels. We have aimed to develop activities in a culturally sensitive manner in order to reach targeted student groups.

Materials created have included a guidebook for assisting students in distress for faculty, staff, and teaching assistants; a fact sheet about counseling for international students; and a Tufts Community Cares website. We are in the process of developing a short video for students that aims to promote positive attitudes about help seeking and the use of counseling services. In collaboration with the Tufts Parents Program we have held workshops for parents on mental health topics at university events such as matriculation day and parents weekend. Our program staff have also attended special resource fairs and orientation events for families of international and first-generation students. In addition, we have written several articles for the Parents Program electronic and paper newsletters on topics such as supporting a child who has come out, mental health issues of college students, and mental health resources. We are in the process of developing a web page that provides mental health and health information and resources especially for families.

Truckee Meadows Community College (TMCC) is committed to creating a zero suicide campus culture. The purpose of the proposed suicide prevention project is to building an infrastructure to support and sustain prevention efforts and continuous care. We will do this by using cultural and ability-appropriate materials and evidence-based interventions to address the needs of our students including those in recovery, LGBTA, Veteran’s, those with disabilites, student leadership, campus leadership, campus police/Threat Assessment Team and culturally diverse individuals. We will provide layers of training from online resources to in-depth training for key campus personnel and student leaders.

Nevada has one of the highest rates of suicide in the nation. The unemployment rate in the state is higher than the national average. Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada is the only community college in Washoe County and has a mission of providing open access for lifelong learning opportunities to improve the quality of life for our diverse community. The campus is non-residential, commuter, and due to its physical location is isolated from community resources.

Our specific program outcomes are to:

• Increase awareness of signs and symptoms of suicide to all audiences. We expect to train 300 students and staff annually with 900 trained over the grant period.
• Provide advanced training to those doing direct intervnetion (for example, campus Counselors, Disability Resource Center (DRC) staff, Student Activities and Leadership Coordinator, police department, student mentors) We will train 30 individuals annually with 90 trained over the course of the grant.
• Develop partnerships with coalitions and orgnaizations on campus to promote a) awareness, b) create an efficient response protocol and follow up with those who are suicidal and c) provide safe places giving support.
• Use technology (Simplicity Advocate, intake databases, social media, etc.) to craete a sustainabilite infrastructure to perform ongoing service once the grant is over.
• Increase collaboration with community agencies for better support and referral processes.

The purpose of the Trinity Christian College Campus Suicide Prevention Grant program is to significantly expand the suicide prevention and response: services of a faith-based college in the Chicago area. This purpose will be met by adding a key program leader as well as grant and matching resources so that this task of prevention and response can be assigned to and effectively implemented by our on-campus counseling services and be connected to community resources. By means of this grant, we will place a Suicide Prevention Specialist (the project director) in our Cooper Career & Counseling Center (CCCC), improve our Crisis Response Plan to include a clear focus on suicide, create a comprehensive Suicide Prevention Plan that will employ multiple strategies, establish the gateway for both on- and off-campus services in our Cooper Career and Counseling Center, and educate those providing clinical services to our students as to the suicide prevention plan.

Our program is ideally suited for our target population which shows evidence of eating disorders, depression and other affective disorders, relational issues (friends and dating, family-including divorce, adoption, and step-family issues), alcohol and drug abuse/addiction, pornography and/or gambling addictions, and identity/sexual orientation issues as well as other mental and behavioral health issues that may lead to suicide. Our student body is 8% African-American, 2% Asian, 5% Hispanic, and 1.5% non-resident aliens; the remainder are Caucasians. This program is characterized by cultural competence by all involved; the staff for this program includes an Hispanic project director and two other ethnic minority clinicians.

This program will effectively address our needs for more training across campus, better linkage to off-campus providers, better understanding of mental and behavioral health services without stigma, easier and more available access for help, better understanding of the warning signs of suicide, and the need to connect families to solutions. Finally, addressing these needs will, per the purpose of the CSPG program, enhance services for students with mental and behavioral health problems, such as depression, substance abuse, and suicide attempts, which can lead to school failure.