Howard University

Howard University’s (HU) Department of Psychiatry and the University Counseling Service have developed the Suicide Prevention Action Group (SPAG). The overall goals of the project are to: (1) maintain and support the increase in HU students’ help seeking behavior; (2) decrease suicidal behavior among HU students at all levels of matriculation; and (3) decrease the stigmatization of mental health seeking behaviors against any HU student at risk of suicide. Project objectives include: (l) to continue and maintain the training of campus wide personnel who interact with HU students who may be at risk for suicide; (2) to deliver effective training for all HU resident assistants (RAs) in campus dormitories and first responders in the HU Hospital, mainly nurses and emergency room staff; (3) to implement an on-line training curriculum for incoming freshmen that will be proceeded by semester long dormitory-based discussions led by the RAs; and (4) to improve SPAG’s existing strategies of education and outreach to new and existing students, and their parents. Target audience for SPAG’s campus-wide program will be all incoming first-year students, resident assistants, and HU Hospital nurses and emergency room staff.