Northeastern Illinois University

Northeastern Illinois University requests funds to support a suicide prevention project designed to enhance campus awareness of factors related to campus suicide and related mental health issues, and to enhance institutional responsiveness to students at risk, strengthening the university’s capacity to respond effectively to students in need. The project involves the development and delivery of workshops, seminars, and outreach presentations to faculty, staff, and students on suicidal risk factors, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and other behavioral factors related to suicide. These outreach and consultation presentations are designed to increase overall awareness within the university community, to enable faculty members and students to identify those at increased risk of suicide and other mental health problems that can interfere with their academic success, and to refer these at-risk students to the university’s Counseling Office or other sources of assistance. The project also involves the strengthening of the university’s capacity to respond to students in this project proposes to enhance collaboration between the Counseling Office and those individuals who are most influential in students’ lives, such as faculty members, families and student colleagues. Mechanisms to strengthen collaboration between key service units are also proposed, including the development of a Crisis Response Team and a formal Crisis Response Plan, the development and provision of specialized training about suicidal risk factors and effective intervention techniques for first responders in selected service units, and the enhancement of referral systems between faculty departments and the Counseling Office.