Grantee Categories: Garrett Lee Smith Tribal

The University of Tennessee at Martin (UT Martin) UTooMatter project takes a public health approach to prevention. UT Martin is a four-year, public institution of higher education and one of four universities in the University of Tennessee System. The University is situated in Weakley County, rural Northwest Tennessee. As of Fall 2017, approximately 6,800 students were enrolled at UT Martin. With the increased need for mental health services on college campuses UT Martin proposes UTooMatter will reduce the adverse consequences of severe mental illnesses and substance use disorders by (1) To develop a sustainable infrastructure for linking students without adequate mental health resources to health care providers that can provide the appropriate services. (2) To provide the campus with an overall awareness of suicide and substance abuse risk factors, warning signs, prevention and resources through evidenced-based training on suicide prevention and mental health promotion and education. (3) To increase the use of voluntary mental health and substance use disorder screenings and assessments on each of UT MARTIN’s campus. Goal (1) will be addressed by developing and implementing a Crisis Protocol, providing telephonic after-hour behavioral health services, providing telehealth counseling to our 5 Educational Outreach Teaching Centers to reduce time and travel barriers, and creating an interdisciplinary task force to share information. Goal (2) will be accomplished by implementing effective trainings and programs (i.e., mental wellness, suicide, and substance. abuse) and strategies for early identification, prevention, and intervention for our students. Finally, goal (3) will be accomplished by increasing access to screening and creating a culture of help-seeking. UT Martin has provided personal counseling services, clinical health services, and wellness promotion and prevention programs to students for over thirty years with trained and credentialed professionals. A collaborative care model for behavioral health services was created when Student Health Services and Counseling Services (SHCS) merged to form SHCS in 2009. The counselor to student ratio for UT Martin main campus for the 2016-17 academic year was 1:1348. SHCS is committed to assisting students in achieving and maintaining wellness by providing medical and counseling services that address the unique needs of its diverse student population. SHCS recognizes that there are certain factors that make certain populations at higher risk of mental health and substance use disorders than others. The UTooMatter project proposes to target Veterans, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual (LGBTQIA), and First-Generation college students. Efforts will be made to collaborate with organizations on-campus and off-campus that already serve these populations and our general student body.

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s (UTC) Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention (GLS) project is designed to help support and accelerate UTC’s efforts in the development of a comprehensive crisis response plan, to enhance the campus community’s awareness of suicide risk factors and warning signs, increase connection to community resources, and increase trainings for students, faculty, staff, and parents to encourage early intervention and utilization of campus and community resources. Our targeted population will include all 13,000 UTC students, faculty, and staff including; veteran students, students with disabilities, first-generation college students, and LGBTQ students within our population. The GLS grant will help our campus focus on these initiatives by providing us with additional staff to help us in the development of a comprehensive plan, to provide trainings to our faculty, staff, students, and caregivers, and in the creation and distribution of awareness campaigns. The ProtoCall services requested in this grant will provide our campus with a resource for our community to increase crisis response for our entire campus community and includes additional line for community members to report behavioral concerns to encourage and facilitate early interventions related to mental health, suicide, and substance abuse. The project will also engage the larger community by creating partnerships and Memorandums of Understanding community crisis response services, emergency rooms, and service providers. In addition, the efforts of this grant will allow UTC to identify and assist high-risk populations by integrating information into existing alcohol and other drug prevention and education efforts. The total impact of the project is estimated to be approximately 6,000 people over the three-year project period through orientation sessions, staff trainings, student outreach, and community events. Project Goals include: Goal 1: Create an Advisory Board to develop a campus-wide protocol for crisis response utilizing the JED Framework for Developing Institution Protocols for Acutely Distressed or Suicidal College Students and Campus MHAP: A guide to campus mental health action planning.. Goal 2: Utilize evidence-based training, Question, Persuade, Refer gatekeeper training programs, and educational seminars to educate staff, students, parents, community members, and faculty. Goal 3: Enhance the campus community’s awareness of suicide risk factors, warning signs, and resources through programming and promotional materials.

The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Stepped CARE Project will create a new service model that both improves student access to mental health resources and provides campus-wide training and year-round suicide screening and prevention activities. Focused on increasing collaboration amongst community and campus stakeholders, this project will offer interventions that range from least intensive (self-directed on-line resources) to high intensive (referral to off campus specialty providers) with several options of intensity between these levels. Because many of USM’s  students are first generation college students in their family and come from low-income rural towns across the state, support for transition and help with resiliency skills are important for student success. The Stepped CARE Project offers resources for all 11,000 students at USM – from the homesick freshman to the recently diagnosed student with bi-polar who struggles with suicidal ideation. A campus-wide screening tool will be used by campus professionals to direct students to the appropriate resources. Financial barriers to assessment and treatment will be removed by covering expenses by campus clinics so they can provide services for free to students. Logistical barriers will be addressed through a campus-wide screening tool that will help professionals get students mental health needs met. This project will also train college students, faculty, and staff to respond effectively to college students with mental and substance use disorders. The Stepped CARE Project will provide outreach services to inform and notify college students about available mental and substance use disorder services.

The University of South Carolina (UofSC) proposes Together We Can, a project to deepen our mental health
infrastructure, increase access to mental health and substance use services, and impact mental health culture on
campus by decreasing barriers to care, including negative beliefs about mental and behavioral health disorders for
campus populations found to be at-risk for increased suicidal ideation and/or decreased help seeking behavior. This
project includes education, outreach, and training to impact five identified target populations: student veterans, LGBTQ
students, students of color, students with low economic resources, and students displaying high-risk behavior. The
UofSC main campus is located in Columbia, SC, where roughly 34,000 students are enrolled. Within a 12 month period,
10% of students seriously considered suicide at some point, 6% intentionally caused harm to themselves, and 1.3%
attempted suicide (NCHA, 2017).

Strategies in this grant include: adding access to ProtoCall behavioral health hotline, regular screening events for students, adding Kognito Veterans On Campus faculty/staff and peer training, offering BASICS interventions within Student Health Services Patient-Centered Medical Home, and using Care and Concern
follow-up postcards to students who have participated in BASICS mandated and voluntary screenings, as well as
students screened with PHQ-9 within medical clinics, or referred by our Behavioral Intervention Team who did not followup
on advised referrals.

Our outreach to target populations includes two innovative projects: identifying faculty and staff within points of contact (positive or stressful) for students in target populations to offer specialized training and messaging; and a Mental Health Advocate program for students, modelled after the Recovery Advocate concept, that will
train students, especially those in target populations, to share a positive mental health story and advocate for students
seeking services and supporting each other when they have mental health concerns. Culturally relevant training and
materials will be developed for our top five international student populations. We will partner with the Student Veterans
Association to develop a Veterans Peer Listening training. We anticipate reaching at least 2,650 campus community
members per year through trainings, educational programs, and increased service utilization. A major message of
Together We Can is that there are many routes to mental health and substance use resources at UofSC to serve every
student: our ProtoCall hotline, Interactive Screening Program, TAO self-directed or therapist-assisted services, and
screening within medical clinics and at screening events, as well as a campus community rich with members who have
the knowledge and skills to refer students to appropriate care. The Together We Can project aims to increase access
to mental health and substance use services, decrease barriers to care particularly to target populations, and create a
more nuanced and skillful campus safety net for our highest risk populations, improving our overall campus mental health
climate.

The proposed project aims to expand the content and delivery of an evidence-based intervention for mental and behavioral health that is designed to increase knowledge, decrease stigma, and encourage help-seeking behavior. By infusing this initiative into the academic and professional standards, this project has the potential to significantly improve mental/behavioral health outcomes and services at the University of Rhode Island. Advancing Mental Health First Aid makes broadly available training to identify, approach, and support individuals who may be struggling with mental/behavioral health concerns. The proposed initiative will develop and implement strategies to centralize and institutionalize the Advanced Mental Health First Aid curriculum through required matriculation and employment trainings, and developing a standing series of open trainings for those individuals who self-select for participation. Implementation of the core Mental Health First Aid curriculum (including the Higher Education module) will be conducted in concert with the development of 6 additional content modules aimed to more directly address the specific risk-factors that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations on college/University campuses, including: the LGBTQ community, international/multicultural student groups, student veterans, members of the Greek system, student Athletes, and students struggling with eating disorders or body image concerns. It is expected that a minimum of 600 participants will be trained during each of the first two years of the proposed project (1200), and an additional 800-900 participants will be trained during the final year (totaling a minimum of 2000-2500 trained participant over the course of the funding cycle). Participants for these trainings will include faculty/staff, and students (undergraduate and graduate) from across University campuses, colleges, and disciplines. Each training will involve self-report measures of participant knowledge of and confidence to use key Mental Health First Aid strategies to identify, approach, and support individuals struggling with mental/behavioral health concerns, including depression, anxiety, substance use/abuse, and suicidal ideation. Additional information will be gathered to evaluate participant awareness of mental/behavioral health resources on campus, as well as their confidence to refer individuals to key service providers at the University. These same constructs will be measured at 3, 6, and 12 months post-training and are expected to demonstrate increased knowledge of and confidence using skills and strategies to intervene on potential mental/behavioral health concerns, as well as increased awareness of and utilization of appropriate campus-based mental/behavioral health resources.

Students and Teachers Reaching Out and Never Giving up (STRONG) Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention
Program at UNT Dallas Abstract The University North Texas at Dallas (UNT Dallas) is proposing the program STRONG
(Students and Teachers Reaching Out and Never Giving up) to support a comprehensive and coordinated approach to
promote mental health and wellness on campus, focusing on the needs of the students and the communities surrounding
the campus. UNT Dallas is a minority serving and Hispanic serving institution with 32% of the students self-identifying
as African-American and 46% as Latino. The prototypical UNT Dallas student is raised in South Dallas, an area that
suffers significant economic distress and is often described as the mental healthcare desert. Project STRONG will
allow us to implement activities to raise awareness, strengthen UNT Dallas’ capacity and off-campus outreach and
network, with a goal of serving approximately 12,000 people annually and 16,000 throughout the life of the project,
including UNT Dallas students, parents/families, faculty/staff, and surrounding communities. We propose to: 1) Educate
and empower students and their families. Students and their family members will be outreached via on-line and paper
brochures, educational materials, mini-courses, life skill and leadership training, informational presentations, health fair
tables, awareness days, use of social media and promotion of online screenings.

By Year 1, 50% of students and 50% of parents/families will receive information and 30% of all students will receive Kognito At-Risk for Students training.
Participants will report 25% increase in their knowledge/attitudes/skills related to mental health issues. 2) Strengthen
the capacity of the faculty, staff, and student leaders to identify, respond to, and assist students at risk for suicide via
implementing Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) gatekeeper training; integrating mental health related service learning
projects in curricula and engaging and empowering student leaders as peer educators and peer advocates in the project
activities. By the end of Year 1, 30% of all faculty and staff members and 50% of all student leaders (club officers) will
be trained. Participants will report 50% increase in their knowledge/attitudes/skills to identify, respond to, and assist
students at-risk for suicide. 3) Strengthen the network of campus and community agencies that provide mental health
services, resources, and support for students, both on campus and in the community. Activities include assessment and
creation of new partnerships, improvement of referral system, promotion of community-based, national, or web-based
resources, creation of opportunities for mental health related service learning, experiential learning, and volunteering
in the community, and partnering up with local institutions and mental health agencies. By the end of Year 1, 100%
of the campus population will be reached with information about local/national services available, at least 40 students
will conduct service learning projects, 120 Upward Bound and 60 McNair Scholars will be trained and 6 high schools
and 1 faith-based organization will participate with us. Participants will report 25% of increase in mental health related
knowledge.

The Behavioral Health Springboard (BHS) at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill’s School of Social
Work will utilize the Garret Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention funds to implement the Carolina Comprehensive
Approach to Suicide Prevention. UNC’s Counseling and Psychological Services, Student Wellness, Campus Health,
Athletics Department, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs will collaborate with BHS to address
the unrecognized and untreated behavioral health conditions of UNC students and to equip the UNC community with
the necessary information and skills to help students in need to get connected to appropriate supports. The goals of
the Carolina Comprehensive Approach to Suicide Prevention include (Goal 1): Enhance mental health services for
UNC students, including those at risk for suicide, depression, serious mental illness, and/or substance use disorders
that can lead to school failure; (Goal 2): Prevent mental and substance use disorders that may, or could, emerge
during college enrollment; (Goal 3): Promote student help-seeking behavior and reduce negative public attitudes
among the UNC community and (Goal 4): Improve the identification and treatment of at-risk UNC students so they can
successfully complete their studies. By analyzing the interface between student life, campus behavioral health services
and resources, local referred providers, and any other key organizations, in a collaborative and inclusive process, this
project will identify and fill gaps related to the necessary components of a comprehensive approach. These components
include: identification and assessment; help-seeking; effective care and treatment; care transitions; responding to crisis;
postvention; access to means; life skills and resilience; and connectedness. Activities included in the project will be
performing a needs/gaps analysis and resource identification; gatekeeper training; policy and practice development; and
awareness campaigns.

The purpose of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Suicide Prevention Program, entitled An Evidence-based
Approach to Preventing Student Suicide at UNL, is to build infrastructure to increase and sustain capacity for effective
identification of and intervention for at risk students and develop a culturally appropriate, comprehensive approach to
address mental health promotion and suicide prevention. The target audience for the proposed project is the estimated
25,000 UNL enrolled students including those at high-risk for suicide and behavior health disorders. Campus and
community partners will address prevention and student well-being by establishing sustainable policies and procedures
with clear pathways for at-risk students transitioning to and from treatment and the campus setting. This project will
provide training for over 4000 faculty, staff, and students in suicide prevention, expand ways to screen students for
depression, alcohol and other drug misuse and abuse and connect them to resources. Campus providers will participate
in CAMS (Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality) training each year with 30 providers trained over
the grant period. Project staff will guide the development of a multi-media campaign to promote help seeking and reduce
the stigma associated with mental health issues.

The University of Hawaiʻi Suicide Prevention Program will serve a highly diverse student population and will target subpopulations that are at high risk for depression, suicide, and substance use issues, including Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ students, students with disabilities, veterans, and students who stigmatize mental health and/or rarely access mental health care prevention and support services. The goals of this grant project are to reduce mental health disparities related to our students’ race, ethnicity, gender and/or sexual identity; decrease reported levels of student distress and suicidal ideation on campus; and educate students and campus community about alcohol and substance use and abuse as a means of reducing high-risk and harmful student behaviors. Interventions and strategies used will include suicide prevention gatekeeper trainings, mental health and substance use focus groups, mental health screening, alternative mental health wellness intervention / prevention programming, and stigma reduction education.

The project’s objectives are as follows:

1. to develop a Community Stakeholder Communication Protocol and establish a Community Prevention Network,
2. facilitate completion of Kognito for 40% of targeted student leaders / employees, and 30% of targeted faculty / staff by end of grant period,
3. train two new QPR facilitators to offer this suicide prevention gatekeeper training to 210 students over three years,
4. establish sustainable protocols and management systems for ongoing suicide prevention gatekeeper training,
5. train 40 student leaders over three years in using and sharing Hei, an indigenous strategy for well-being,
6. increase student participation in mental health / substance use screening events by 10% each year,
7. roll out No Shame, No Blame stigma reduction campaign particularly targeting Hawaiian and Pacific Islander men,
8. by the end of three years, produce six video clips aimed at increasing targeted students’ access of counseling services by 15%,
9. deliver evidence-based substance use intervention program(s) to 30% of students who have identified themselves as needing this support,
10. develop culturally relevant alternative mental health prevention and intervention strategies by conducting focus groups, allowing at least 120 students over three years to access mental health care services who otherwise would not,
11. expand access to HeartMath software by at least 25 students a year as part of a campaign about stress, anxiety and sleep management, and
12. revitalize Men of Strength programming as a means of increasing participant’s help-seeking, well-being, and knowledge of campus and community support resources.