School of the Art Institute of Chicago

The purpose of SAIC CARES is to establish a formal, comprehensive, and responsive suicide prevention program at the school of The Art Institute of Chicago. SAIC CARES intends to build upon our experience in previous national collaborative efforts to deal with depression and substance abuse on campus to initiate proactive and innovative efforts to engage the SAIC community in the identification of students at-risk of self-harm and other adverse consequences of untreated illness. The goals of SAIC CARES are to 1) increase early identification of at-risk students, 2) to increase the help-seeking behavior of clinically depressed and anxious students, and 2) to develop a state-of-the-art case and care management-based tracking and surveillance system for students who have experienced severe mental illness and/or significant psychiatric crises/emergencies. To meet these goals SAIC CARES will utilize a multi-faceted approach that will include training SAIC community members in Mental Health First Aid and a Dance/Movement-based suicide prevention program, providing to SAIC students a web-based self-help program for depression, THRIVE, that teaches skills from cognitive-behavioral therapy, instituting care management functions within Student Affairs, participating in the annual Healthy Minds study, and engaging parents of new students with pre-existing mental health problems through the development of education materials and a summer webinar.