Wolves R.I.S.E. Together: resilience, intervention, support, and education - KEUKA's wellness initiative for preventing suicide & substance use - KEUKA college (KEUKA) proposes "wolves R.I.S.E.…

Wolves R.I.S.E. Together: resilience, intervention, support, and education - KEUKA's wellness initiative for preventing suicide & substance use - KEUKA college (KEUKA) proposes "wolves R.I.S.E. Together: resilience, intervention, support, and education - KEUKA's wellness initiative for preventing suicide & substance use" (wolves R.I.S.E.) to fortify its ability to identify and respond to students at risk of suicide or who are experiencing a mental health crisis. The proposed project will create new resources and training specific to resilience and enhancing protective factors. Activities will include the healthy minds survey (HMS); policy improvement related to suicidality; expanding counseling and psychiatric capacity; campus-wide training and education; and enhanced screening, intervention, and postvention. Wolves R.I.S.E. Will focus on an upstream prevention approach. Located in rural KEUKA park, yates county, new york, KEUKA is a private, undergraduate, and graduate, residential college offering over 50 study programs including occupational therapy, nursing, community health and wellness, and social work. KEUKA had a fall 2023 enrollment of 1,284 students, of which 77% are females, 23% are males, 80% white, 5% hispanic, 4% black, 4% two or more races, and 7% unknown/undisclosed. Pell eligible or low-income students comprise 55% of students, 30% first-generation college students (FGCS), and 15% lgbtqia+ students. Wolves R.I.S.E. Will address the mental health needs of the college's freshmen, FGCS, low-income/pell eligible, lgbtqia+, athletes, and higher education opportunity program (HEOP) students. The project goal is to enhance mental health services for all students, with a special emphasis on students at high risk for suicide, depression, and/or substance use disorder (SUD). KEUKA lost a student to suicide in 2019 which impacted the college community. In the past two years, students seen through KEUKA's counseling services (CS) comprise 29 students reporting previous suicide attempts, 90 students reporting suicide ideations, 6 students needing comprehensive psychiatric emergency program transports, and 7 students hospitalized for mental health concerns. CS will lead wolves R.I.S.E. Which will leverage question, persuade, refer (QPR) training. Strategies to prevent suicide and promote mental well-being on campus will include: 1) create an advisory council of campus and community partners with cross-cutting expertise in mental and substance use disorders, 2) hire additional staff to increase clinical capacity, student outreach, education, and referrals, 3) participate in the HMS, 4) formalize community partnerships to secure warm referrals for longer-term treatment and to build continuity of care, 5) increase the number of certified QPR trainers, 6) enhance voluntary substance use and depression screening, and 7) promote upstream protective factors that prevent students from reaching the point of SUD or suicidal ideation. The goals and objectives related to these strategies are: 1) strengthen KEUKA's ability to identify and respond to students at risk of suicide and meet students' mental health needs (objectives include: conducting HMS in year 1 and 3, add 20 hours/month of psychiatric services); 2) promote student social connectedness and decrease loneliness (objectives include: students reporting improved mental health markers, increase participation in suicide prevention and outreach by 10%); 3) improve pre- and post-intervention for suicide ideation (objectives include: 400 students, faculty, and staff trained in QPR). By the project's end, the number of QPR certified trainers will increase from 5 to a total of 8, and 400 faculty, staff, and students will be QPR trained. Outreach strategies will specifically focus on increasing resilience, social connectedness, and upstream prevention.