University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, as the flagship public university in the state of Michigan, educates over 43,000 students a year and is the largest employer in the state of Michigan. Despite strong institutional commitment to mental health services, 24% of UM students report thinking about suicide, while 11.3% seriously considered attempting suicide at least once in the last academic year. In addition, 1.1% of students said they had attempted suicide at least once. UM’s Campus Suicide Prevention Grant will build upon a strong foundation of universal approaches to mental health education, student support, and stigma reduction at UM to make suicide prevention a core university-wide priority. The goals of our 3-year Campus Suicide Prevention Grant will be to:

1. Capitalize on existing collaborations at the University of Michigan to increase capacity for suicide prevention. In Year 1, our Suicide Prevention Task Force will complete required activities such as a) updating the university’s mental health needs assessment (last updated in 2005) b) assessing provider capacity/training both on and off campus, and c) developing and disseminating a long-term, comprehensive suicide prevention and crisis management plan aligned with the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention.
2. Build upon our foundation of universal prevention by initiating indicated prevention strategies for 3 high-risk groups at U of M: returning veterans and their families, LGBTQ youth, and “disconnected” students (defined as first generation students and/or those on academic probation).
3. Partner with Michigan’s State GLS grant to provide training opportunities to university clinical staff as well as local community providers in evidence-based suicide risk assessment and care management (AMSR) as well as intensive gatekeeper training (ASIST). These training opportunities will expand U of M’s existing QPR gatekeeper training program and will prioritize a) graduate student instructors, b) pre-service training for students studying to enter helping professions as well as c) tailored trainings to support the needs of our identified high risk populations.
4. With the support of our Suicide Prevention Task Force, we will identify “suicide prevention champions” across departments and organizations at the university who will actively support suicide prevention as a core priority and who will ensure sustainability of suicide prevention activities post grant award.

UM’s Campus Suicide prevention grant will benefit the entire community (43,000 students and over 21,000 employees), especially the 310 matriculated veterans, approximately 3000 first generation students, and approximately 1,300 students identifying as LGBTQ (based on a rate of 3% identifying as LGBTQ). We will provide intensive best practices trainings (to include ASIST, AMSR, and trainings in cultural competence) for a minimum of 30 members of the clinical work force and 30 gatekeepers per year for 3 years.