ST. Lawrence university comprehensive care network (CCN) project - ST

Lawrence university proposes to launch the comprehensive care network (CCN) project to address the rapidly growing needs of our target population of 2,227 undergraduates in the areas of mental health, suicide prevention, and substance misuse. Within our JED campus strategic plan, the CCN project will use evidence-based approaches to improve the identification and treatment of at-risk students and expand campus infrastructure to provide services. ST. Lawrence university (SLU) is a four-year private, residential liberal arts college located in the rural and under-resourced "north country" region of upstate new york. Based upon institutional research and baseline data emerging from our new partnership with JED campus, our priority is to develop a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to student mental health, suicide prevention, and substance misuse and to identify gaps in our current network of campus-community services and resources. To accomplish this, we seek support from the samhsa GLS campus program for the proposed CCN project to benefit our undergraduate student population of 2,227 (54% female/46% male; 13% US bipoc; 9% international; 21% pell-eligible; 19% first-GEN). Our project goals are to: 1) improve the identification and treatment of college students at-risk for suicide, depression, serious mental illness (SMI)/serious emotional disturbances (SED), and/or substance use disorders that can lead to school failure; and 2) enhance mental health services to prevent and reduce suicide, and mental health and substance use disorders on campus. Informed by JED's comprehensive framework, our project strategies focus on a) improve institutional capacity to identify students at risk and increase student help-seeking behavior; b) build campus infrastructure to provide mental health and substance misuse services; c) strengthen students' social and emotional learning through targeted programming for life skills development and social connectedness; and d) establish and follow crisis management procedures. Led by PI and director of counseling tara tent and CO-PI and director of wellness education laura lavoie, the CCN project team will collaborate with campus and community partners to work towards key objectives that include: increasing the numbers of faculty, staff and students trained in question, persuade, refer (QPR) and mental health first aid techniques; encouraging student help-seeking behavior through universal online tools, engagement with student groups, and targeted outreach; improving student access to campus counseling services; increasing substance misuse awareness and education; working with campus and community partners to refine policies and care procedures; and reducing risk and access to lethal means on campus. The CCN project team will collect a significant amount of data and apply both quantitative and qualitative evaluation approaches within the framework of our JED campus strategic plan to track our progress towards our goals and objectives and allow for continuous quality improvement.