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Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Resources For Colleges and Universities

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News Articles and Announcements

• AP poll: Many students stressed, some depressed by The Associated Press, Tampa Bay Online.



• "Bucking Privacy Concerns, Cornell Acts as Watchdog, Staff Trained to Spot Students in Distress; Campus Suicides Drop" by Elizabeth Bernstein, The Wall Street Journal.



• "Campus Involvement Considered Key in Reducing Student Depression, Suicide" by Mike Graham, The Daily Toreader.



• "Colleges Put Out Safety Nets" by Marilyn Elias, USA Today.



• "Falling Through the Cracks – Virginia Tech and the Restructuring of College Mental Health Services" by Miriam Shuchman, M.D., The New England Journal of Medicine.



• "Half of College Students Consider Suicide; Survey Finds Widespread Problem Demands New Approach to Treatment" by MSNBC and NBC News.



• National Mental Health and Anti-Stigma Campaign for Colleges and Universities
  SAMHSA in collaboration with the Ad Council has delivered their National Mental Health Stigma public service advertising (PSA) campaign for the first time directly to colleges and universities throughout the country. The campaign aims to reach 18-25 year olds and is designed to decrease negative attitudes that surround mental illness by encouraging these young adults to support friends with mental health problems.



• "Preventing Suicide on College Campuses", SAMHSA News
  In the November/December 2007 edition topics related to the prevention of suicide on college campuses are highlighted.



• "Sense of Belonging a Key to Suicide Prevention" by Anne Harding, Reuters.

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Information and Resources

• Suicide Prevention Resource Center - Resources for College Students


• Identifying and Treating Students at Risk for Suicide: The AFSP College Screening Project
  Ann Haas, Research Director, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
  October 7, 2004


• College Student Depression and Suicide – 90 minute presentation.  The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) developed The Truth about Suicide: Real Stories of Depression in College as an outgrowth of its commitment to support colleges and universities in implementing suicide prevention as an integral part of their ongoing campus activities and services. The aim of this 27-minute film is to present a recognizable picture of depression and other problems associated with suicide, as they are commonly experienced by college students and other young adults.  Group discussion is facilitated after the film presentation.  Display of resources and pamphlets is included.
  


• Half of Us
  Check out the Half of Us campaign, a project with mtvU that includes videos of your favorite artists and other students sharing how they’ve coped with mental health issues.


• Active Minds
  Active Minds is the nation’s only peer-to-peer organization dedicated to raising awareness about mental health among college students. The organization serves as the young adult voice in mental health advocacy on over one hundred college campuses nationwide.


• Advancing School Mental Health
  The 13th Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health will be held in Phoenix, Arizona on September 25-27. Sponsored by the Center for School Mental Health (CSMH) and the IDEA Partnership, this year’s conference theme is "School Mental Health for All Students: Building a Shared Agenda for Youth, Families, Schools, and Communities."


• Campus Mental Health: Know Your Rights! A guide for students who want to seek help for mental illness or emotional distress. Produced by the Leadership21 Committee of the Bazelon Center.


• March 2008 Programming Focuses on College Students’ Mental Health
  The Jed Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on preventing suicide among college students, and mtvU, MTV’s college network, have dedicated March programming to college students’ mental health. A component of the "Half of Us" campaign, the programming will focus on the toll that stress and other emotional issues are having on the national college audience and provide additional online resources and information about where to get help on campus. Learn more about this campaign and current programming at mtvU’s "Half of Us" Web site.
  
  The Jed Foundation offers the following resources:
• Approach to Comprehensive Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention for Colleges and Universities


• Campus Care: A New Initiative Designed to Assist Campuses in Improving Student Mental Health and Well-Being


• Depression and Suicidal Behaviors in Students Studying Abroad: Identifying Students at Risk


• "Framework for Developing Institutional Protocols for the Acutely Distressed or Suicidal College Student"


• The Jed Foundation Framework: Developing Campus Protocols for the At-Risk Student (PowerPoint)


• Student Mental Health and the Law – Produced at a roundtable with legal and university experts, this document covers FERPA, HIPAA, and disability law in addition to other complex and challenging topics schools face. (Scroll down on the page for the document.)


• What Information and Resources are Useful for a College to Consider When Planning Suicide Prevention Initiatives on Campus?


• Part I. Campus Mental Health Action Planning (MHAP) BUILDING MOMENTUM
  The first CampusMHAP webinar focused on how to build momentum for developing a mental health promotion and suicide prevention plan.


• Part II. Campus Mental Health Action Planning (MHAP) IDENTIFYING PRIORITIES
  The second CampusMHAP webinar described how to develop a clear and specific definition of campus problems that will help drive program planning.


• Part III. Campus Mental Health Action Planning (MHAP) DEVELOPING PROGRAMS
  Webinar III focused on selecting and developing campus practices that are likely to decrease mental health problems, suicidal behavior and suicide as well as promote mental health and wellness.


• "Promoting Mental Health and Preventing Suicide in College and University Settings" by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.
• The Suicide Prevention Resource Center offers the following sources:
  • "Best Practices for Suicide Prevention," a PowerPoint presentation by Morton Silverman, M.D., and David Litts, O.D.
  
  
  • "Fact Sheet for College Students" including the role of college students in preventing suicide, recognizing the warning signs, helping your peers, taking care of yourself, and additional resources.
  
  
  • Registry of Evidence-Based Suicide Prevention Programs (Best Practices Registry):
  • U.S. Air Force Program (Knoxx, Litts, Talcott, Feig, & Caine, 2003)
  
  
  • Limits on Analgesic Packaging (Hawton, 2002)
  
  
  • Brief Psychological Intervention after Deliberate Self-Poisoning (Guthrie et al., 2001)
  
  
  • C-Care/CAST (Randall, Eggert & Pike, 2001)
  
  
  • Columbia University TeenScreen Program (Kaplan et al., 2005)
  
  
  • Emergency Department Means Restriction Education (Kreusi et al., 1999; McManus et al., 1997)
  
  
  • Specialized Emergency Room Intervention for Suicidal Adolescent Females (Rotherum-Borus, Piacentini, Cantwell, Belin & Song, 2000)
  
  
  • Lifelines (Kalafat & Elias, 1994)
  
  
  • PROSPECT (Bruce et al, 2004)
  
  
  • Reconnecting Youth Class (Thompson, Eggert, Randall, & Pike, 2001)
  
  
  • SOS: Signs of Suicide (Aseltine, 2003; Aseltine & DeMartino, 2004)
  
  
  • Zuni Life Skills Development (LaFromboise & Howard-Pitney, 1995)
  
  
  • Campus Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Promotion - SPRC's new College and Universities webpages were created to support campuses in beginning, improving, and sustaining a public health effort to prevent suicide and promote mental health on campuses.
  
  
• "Virginia Tech Tragedy: Tips for Educators, Students and Parents" by Mental Health America.


• At-Risk Training
  At-Risk is an interactive web-based training simulation designed to help university faculty and staff identify, approach, and refer students in mental distress. In the simulation, users assume the role of a faculty member in a fictional university where they must analyze students' profiles to identify those who are potentially at-risk, engage those students in simulated conversations, and determine whether and how to refer them to the campus counseling center. A demo of the can be viewed at www.kognito.com/atrisk. The 45-minute simulation is built upon Kognito's patent-pending and award-winning simulation technology, which enables users to practice having conversations with realistic, virtual characters that possess their own memory and emotions. This innovative and highly effective learning approach results in users who are better equipped and more confident to handle similar situations in real life.


• People Prevent Suicide
  We aim to provide student leaders, counselors, safety and health professionals, parents, spiritual leaders, senior administrators, faculty/staff, friends, and media with toolkits on how to prepare for the prevention of and response to suicide on college campuses.

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Research

• "An Empirically Supported Program to Prevent Suicide in a College Student Population" by P. Joffe, Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior
  This detailed report of widely known, but less understood, intervention describes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne’s suicide prevention program, which includes a policy requiring any student who threatens or attempts suicide to attend four sessions of professional assessment as a condition of continued enrollment in the university. The program also includes a Suicide Prevention Team, to whom 2,017 suicide incidents have been submitted since the program’s inception 21 years ago. After implementation of the program, the rate of suicide at locations within Champaign County (the university’s location) declined 45.3 percent compared to the eight years prior.


• "Should We Invest in Suicide Prevention" by Sari, Castro, Newman, and Mills, The Journal of Socio-Economics.
  Suicide is the third leading cause of death among college aged youth in Florida. However, there is no prevention program targeting this population group. This paper examines the potential impact of making two prevention programs, general suicide education, and peer support programs available for college students. The results show that both programs increase social welfare by creating social benefits which exceed the costs of the programs.


• "Suicidal Anorexics: Determined to Die?" by Kathleen Kingsbury, Time Magazine
  New research conducted at the University of Vermont supports the previous research findings indicating that women with anorexia nervosa are more likely than women without anorexia to die by suicide. Researchers claim that anorexics have a "likelier propensity toward suicide" and that they choose more lethal means when attempting suicide.

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Funding Opportunities

• Helping Hands Grant Program
  This program was established to encourage medical students to participate in community service activities, particularly those focused on underserved populations; raise awareness of mental illness and the importance of early recognition of illness; and build and interest amongst medical students in psychiatry and working in underserved communities.

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