Grantee Types: Garrett Lee Smith Campus

Towson University Counseling Center (TUCC) will provide and evaluate gatekeeper training to students and campus personnel to assist in identifying students at risk for suicide and referring them for help. Project funds will enable TUCC to increase the number of educational seminars providing culturally competent information about suicide risk factors and reducing treatment stigma. The project will create and implement a comprehensive, strategic suicide prevention plan and ensure that the university response to students is as helpful as possible. Students who engage in behaviors raising concern regarding possible risk to self or others are brought to the attention of the Campus Student Concerns Committee. The Committee will identify what actions need to be taken to best assist the student and protect the community. The grant will also provide for the development of infrastructure to support the committee.

The project will also include developing improved infrastructure and a referral database to assist potentially at-risk students to access services beyond the scope of what the TUCC provides. The database would allow TUCC providers to connect students more quickly to the most appropriate resource to fit their individual and culturally-specific needs. Enhanced visibility of the TUCC hotline and National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will provide access to crisis response to all students, including African American students and LGBTI students who are a focus of the project. Culturally-specific, web-based materials will also be developed for faculty, family members, and community gatekeepers.

JeffHELP is a multi-disciplinary infrastructure consisting of stakeholders’ groups from all facets of campus life designed to develop, implement, and evaluate a campus-based suicide prevention program at Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), a health sciences university in Philadelphia. We plan to increase awareness, educate about suicide risk, link individuals to services who need them, and promote healthy behaviors across our campus community of 14,204 students, faculty, and staff. Unlike most colleges and universities in the United States, TJU specifically focuses on students preparing to enter health professional fields. This presents numerous challenges and demands unique to our population of students and those faculty and staff with whom they interact. Medical students face an increased risk of suicide compared to age-matched controls (Schernhammer, 2005) and are reluctant to use mental health services (Tjia et al., 2005; Clark & Zeldow, 1988). A recent survey completed at TJU found that students in other health professional fields are at similar or increased risk compared to the medical students (Wintersteen et al., 2011).

The overarching goals of JeffHELP are to 1) create an infrastructure for the delivery and sustainability of effective mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment services, and 2) create a culture of acceptance of support for psychosocial issues. To achieve these goals, we will have five objectives, modeled after the Jed Foundation’s Model for Comprehensive Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention for Colleges and Universities.

Objective 1. (Jeff) Develop key stakeholders’ groups on campus focused on mental health and reducing suicide risk. We will form a Committee on Campus Mental Health, comprised of administrators in a number of key campus areas, to provide oversight to the project. A Campus Suicide Prevention Task Force, comprised largely of students, will assist with implementation efforts.

Objective 2. (H) Heightened Awareness – increase awareness across the Jefferson community about suicide risk, help-seeking, and lethal means restriction through print and multimedia formats and promoting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Objective 3. (E) Educate members of the Jefferson community about risk factors and warning signs of suicide both in the classroom and faculty meetings.

Objective 4. (L) Improve linkages to mental health and substance abuse services on- and off-campus through heightened screening efforts by the Student Personal Counseling Center and University Health Services, as well as improving our capacity to refer off-campus.

Objective 5. (P) Promote better health practices among the Jefferson community, including the facilitation of social support networks and wellness activities. Throughout this process, we will partner with the Pennsylvania State grantee and the Jed Foundation, both of whom will provide consultation to our campus project.

SAFETY TRAINING AND EDUCATION TO PREVENT SUICIDE (STEPS) is a university-wide initiative that ultimately seeks to prevent suicide and suicide attempts on the campus of Texas Southern University (TSU). It is estimated that 1,100 college students die by suicide every year – an average of 3 a day (Kisch, Leino & Silverman, 2005) and many times that number (1.5% of the college population) report having made at least one suicide attempt (American College Health Association, 2005). Texas Souther University is a culturally diverse campus to approximately 9,000 full-time students with 97% being considered minority students, and 55% between the ages of 18-24. In order to improve awareness about suicide on college campuses, and to prevent any further incidences of suicide and suicide attempts on this Historically Black College and University (HBCU) campus of Texas Southern University, this initiative will address prevention, intervention and postvention. This initiative will certify all new Resident Assistants (RAs) with the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training for the next three years, and implement a sustaining program that will continue to training Resident Assistants in subsequent years. In addition to the RAs, other student leaders and faculty/staff will be trained, with 200 persons in the first year, 300 persons in the second year and an additional 350 persons in the third year receiving the MHFA training certification. In addition to expanding existing services and programs, STEPS, is designed to offer training specific to underserved groups, namely the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) community and veterans and military families. Additionally, STEPS will better inform faculty and staff of services to which they may refer students. The Kognito At-Risk website training, a new program, will be implemented to ensure campus-wide involvement for all students, faculty and staff. The Kognito At-Risk training will be set up in such a way that it will address the population at large in the first year, followed by addressing specific needs of the LGBTQ community in the second year, and the veterans/military families in the third year. Tapping on the collaboration of the several departments on the campus of TSU (University Counseling Center, Department of the Health Sciences, Department of Psychology and the Department of Social Work) along with partnerships with other entities including but not limited to: Student Health Center, Housing, Veterans Affairs, Judicial Affairs, Mental Health Mental Retardation Agency, National Alliance of Mental Illness, Neuropsychiatric Hospital of Houston, National Suicide Prevention Hotline), campus wide seminars, workshops and webinars addressing suicide prevention, mental health issues and substance abuse will be addressed. Informational materials will be made available for all students and family members/caregivers of students. Pre and post surveys will be utilized throughout the programming to measure efficacy and proficiency. The program will be evaluated utilizing the expertise of a program evaluator.

The Suicide Prevention and Crisis Response Management for Texas College project seeks to reduce the number of suicide attempts and deaths by suicide among first-generation college students and students of single parents at Texas College. This project has multiple components. First, we are creating a crisis response plan for responding to suicide attempts and deaths by suicide. Second, we are conducting the Suicide Prevention Exposure, Awareness, and Knowledge Survey. Third, we are developing and conducting educational seminars that include information on suicide prevention, identification of at-risk students, reduction of risk factors, depression, substance abuse, promotion of help-seeking behaviors, and stigma reduction related to care for mental and behavioral health. Fourth, we are creating a local college-based hotline and promoting linkages to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK). Finally, we are conducting a social marketing campaign that addresses warning signs of suicide, risk and protective factors, symptoms of depression and substance abuse, promotion of help-seeking behavior, and stigma reduction related to care for mental and behavioral health problems.

TAMUCC College of Nursing and Health Sciences and University Counseling Center are partnering in the Suicide Awareness Focuses on Everyone (SAFE) project to build an infrastructure and comprehensive plan to support expanded efforts to promote resilience, mental health and wellness for students including LGBTQ students, Veteran Students and students experiencing substance abuse and mental health problems who are at greater risk for suicide. The SAFE project will also challenge mental health stigmas that interfere with help seeking. The SAFE project will also provide education and educational resources to staff and faculty and student families to help them to recognize and intervene appropriately with distressed students.

Population Served: The SAFE project will target all TAMUCC students, faculty, and staff with a special emphasis on LGBTQ students and Student Veterans due to the additional risk factors and special needs of these populations. The SAFE project will also provide information to families of TAMUCC students and collaborate with community partners to promote campus suicide awareness and prevention. Demographics of students enrolled in Fall 2014: Hispanic (44.7%); White (39.4%): African American (5.4%); Asian American (2.4%); Native American and Alaskan Native (>1%); other (2.4%) and International Students (4.9%). 70+% of students receive some type of financial aid to pay for their academic courses. Female 61%, Male 39%.

Strategies/Interventions: The SAFE project will develop an Advisory Board to identify, guide and promote TAMUCC suicide prevention efforts and help facilitate referrals of students to community mental health resources, and crisis response plan which includes response to suicide attempts or death by suicide; Implement the QPR, and Kognito gatekeeper training programs for students, faculty, and staff; Provide College SOS and Mental Health Screenings; Host an annual large-scale event annually focused on depression awareness and suicide prevention; Promote the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; Obtain and distribute informational materials related to suicide prevention; Obtain and distributed educational materials for families of students to increase awareness of potential mental and substance use disorders among students. 

Goals and Objectives: Over the lifetime of the grant, the goal is to train 3,500 students in Kognito-At-Risk for College Students and 450 faculty and staff in Kognito-At Risk for University & College Faculty; train 6 QPR Gatekeeper Instructors and 600 gatekeepers; train 100 in College SOS; provide 3,800 Mental Health Screenings; host 3 large annual suicide awareness and prevention events and offer 6 Resiliency and Mindfulness Trainings to SAFE and other selected faculty and staff members; distribute 1,250+ promotional items.

This project will provide services that will expand the Tennessee Technological University Counseling Center’s capacity to better respond to the increased demand of students who experience depression, suicidal ideation, and experience mental health crisis. More specifically, this project will enhance the Tennessee Technological University Counseling Center’s existing crisis prevention, intervention, and suicide prevention services.

Tennessee Technological University is a public 235 acre campus located in Cookeville, Tennessee approximately 80 miles from Nashville, Tennessee.  The campus has a total student body of 11,339 students with 1,025 of those students being graduate students and 10,314 being undergraduate students. Approximately 79 percent of this university is Caucasian with 3.7 percent being African American, 2.2 percent Hispanic, 1.3 percent Asian, 11 percent non-resident alien, and 2.8 percent other race/ethnicity. There are approximately 400 student veterans on campus. In addition, there are 300 students receiving services through the Office of Disability Services.

Project Goals include:

1. Provide training to the Tennessee Technological University Counseling Center mental health service providers on prevention of suicide and related behaviors.
2. Increase Question, Persuade, Refer gatekeeper trainings across the Tennessee Technological University campus to include targeted populations and departments that have a role in the prevention of suicide and related behaviors.
3. Reduce stigma and discrimination associated with suicide on Tennessee Technological University campus through the development and implementation of educational seminars.
4. Expand and implement effective crisis prevention and intervention for the Tennessee Technological University campus.
5. Promote efforts to reduce access to lethal means by students with identified suicide risk.

The goal of the Temple University Campus Suicide Prevention project is to create and provide a campus culture that promotes help-seeking where: (1) students receive culturally appropriate information and services around suicide prevention, mental and behavioral health and substance use/abuse with no wrong door to access services and (2) outreach is based by school/college so students are not required to disclose their status (veteran, LGBT, mental health diagnosis, etc.) in order to learn about/access services.

Currently our suicide prevention strategy focuses on identifying at-risk students through concerning behaviors that cause students, faculty, staff and parents to make referrals to CARE team, Tuttleman Counseling Services, and Student Conduct. This proposed project utilizes a more proactive and comprehensive public health model to create a campus culture that promotes help-seeking by utilizing, mobilizing and strengthening student groups, faculty and staff with increased training and outreach. Working with student groups in a traditional workshop/educational model will reach a significant population to help change the campus culture around mental health and substance use/abuse. We firmly believe that with our unique “pre-disclosure” information sharing strategy, targeting all students who can then move to the next step of seeking out services/supports specific to their needs, coupled with the utilization of social media and web-based strategies, we will increase capacity and reach many students who would not ordinarily access services

Programmatic elements include:

• “Student Safety Nest” a web-based gatekeeper training program for faculty, staff, parents and family members.
• Semiannual Brief Motivational Interviewing training to direct service personnel.
• Creation of an integrated referral database for referring students needing services in the community.
• Mobile web application with mental and behavioral health resources on campus and in the community.
• Resources and educational programs targeted to parents and other family members delivering educational materials to aid them in supporting their student web-based and in-person.
• Working with university stakeholders and nationally recognized experts to develop educational programs targeted toward all members of the university community.
• Broad-based educational programs promoting healthy lifestyle choices that contribute to maintaining emotional well-being, self-awareness, and help-seeking behavior.
• Comprehensive marketing campaign utilizing a variety of print, web based and multimedia tools to promote the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Syracuse University has been increasingly concerned with the serious and diverse mental and behavioral health problems among its students. The belief that student isolation and difficulty in tolerating emotional distress significantly contribute to these mental health difficulties have prompted our Center to develop two specific prevention programs with the support of the SAMHSA grant: 1) Campus Connect Gatekeeper Training workshop and 2) Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction educational seminars.

Our gatekeeper training workshop is a three-hour experientially based crisis intervention and suicide prevention training program. In Year 1 of our grant, we have trained and assessed all of our Residence Life staff (250), and our Health Services staff (50). Outcome studies to date are evidencing highly significant results. Satisfaction surveys are quite positive. As a result of our preliminary success, several other colleges and universities have requested training in the implementation of our model.

Our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Seminar series has also met with success. Thus far, we have offered three eight-week seminars to over 80 students. Preliminary outcome results evidence significant results and students completing the course are overwhelmingly positive with regard to its affect on their ability to tolerate emotional distress.

In addition to our specific programs, we have also begun a campus wide social marketing campaign with posters and public service radio announcements aimed at de-stigmatizing the need for mental health services and increasing awareness and visibility of our Counseling Center.