Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among U.S.
college students, with 1,100 students dying preventable deaths every year. Many
thousands more college students attempt suicide each year. However, many are
reluctant to seek help, in part because of lingering stigmas about mental
illness.
UNCG School of Education Associate Professor Dr. Deborah
Taub is working with other concerned faculty members, staff and students to
change these tragic facts. Taub helped organize Friends Helping Friends, a peer
training program that educates UNCG students about the warning signs of
suicidal behavior. Students are given the tools to recognize and respond to
classmates who exhibit these troubling signs.
In reviewing cases of college student suicide, Dr. Taub
said, “We found that invariably, friends knew, but they didn’t know what to
do.” Also, research shows that college students are much more likely to respond
to help when it comes from a peer than from a mental health or medical
professional.
Friends Helping Friends aims to arm UNCG students with the
information they need to identify and assist classmates who may be suffering
from severe emotional stress. To date, the program has reached more than 3,000
students since its 2009 inception. A study conducted by Taub found that 83
percent of trained students who encountered an at-risk classmate successfully
used the skills they learned through Friends Helping Friends. Those strategies
range from being a sympathetic listener to actually walking a classmate to the
campus counseling center.
So why is suicide such a problem on college campuses? Dr.
Taub said that young adulthood is when many serious mental illnesses, such as
bi-polar disorder, first manifest themselves. Also, college students find
themselves away from family and other long-time support networks for the first
time.
According to the
American College Health Association, forty percent of college students report
having symptoms of depression, and approximately one in ten say they have seriously
considered suicide in the past year. Such sobering numbers prove the
need for a comprehensive suicide prevention program on campus.
Dr. Taub came to UNCG from Purdue University six years ago.
Just before leaving Purdue, she helped that institution secure a $253,000 from the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration to fund a suicide prevention program. At UNCG,
she helped the university land the same three-year grant in 2009. UNCG was one
of 17 campuses nationally to receive the federal Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration grant.
“The programs are not very similar, since Purdue and UNCG
are so different,” Dr. Taub said. Nevertheless, she said she learned a great
deal from having gone through the process before.
One of the key lessons she learned from previous experience
is that grant money should not be used to fund recurring expenses. Taub said
that what often happens is that programs start strong but fizzle out once the
grant money expires.
In order to prevent that from happening at UNCG, she and
other organizers used the grant to create the curriculum for training students.
That basic framework is now in place, so the program will be sustainable after
the grant expires without significant additional investment by the university.
Friends Helping Friends recently was honored with a national
award – the Gold Excellence Award from Student
Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA.) Dr. Taub and other program
administrators travelled to Phoenix in March to receive the Gold Excellence
Award.
With Friends Helping Friends now established and running
smoothly, Dr. Taub is working on a book spotlighting the success stories in
suicide prevention on campuses across the country, including her own
experiences at UNCG.
The problem of youth suicide is nothing new and even the
best program cannot completely eliminate the threat. However, Friends Helping
Friends is making a difference at UNCG, one student at a time.
“We try to expand the safety net,” Dr. Taub said.
No comments:
Post a Comment