{"id":40802230472,"date":"2018-09-06T14:27:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T18:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/?p=40802230472"},"modified":"2018-09-24T14:51:05","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T18:51:05","slug":"monmouth-university-works-to-prevent-suicide-by-strengthening-community-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/monmouth-university-works-to-prevent-suicide-by-strengthening-community-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"Monmouth University Works to Prevent Suicide by Strengthening Community Infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monmouth receives prestigious federal grant funding for a second time<\/strong><\/p>\n

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. (Sept. 6, 2018)<\/strong>\u2014 Monmouth University is launching a new, federally funded effort to create a stronger, broader infrastructure to prevent suicides on campus. Michelle Scott, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the SRF Suicide Prevention Research and Training Project in the School of Social Work at Monmouth will be leading the \u201cConnect to Wellness: a Competent Community Initiative\u201d as the principal investigator.<\/p>\n

The grant project, \u201cConnect to Wellness,\u201d is designed to better serve young adults on campus by increasing the connection between students and services, strengthening the linkages between general health, mental health, and substance abuse resources on campus, and fostering collaboration with local providers.\u00a0\u00a0A key part of the project is the development of a \u201cone-stop shop\u201d type of web-portal for all things wellness and safety on campus for students, staff and faculty to identify resources on campus.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In addition, the campus will increase its utilization of electronic medical records\u00a0in accordance\u00a0with\u00a0all federal privacy guidelines allowing real-time information about health-related services utilization across campus and, for military-affiliated students increasing communication with off-campus resources.\u00a0\u00a0This comprehensive view of a student\u2019s health history can help providers on campus identify and serve the needs of the student body before a crisis occurs.<\/p>\n

While suicide has consistently remained a leading cause of death of college students, behind accidents, the rates of mental health challenges as well as suicidal behavior of college students have increased.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most recent American College Health Survey reports that 62 percent and 68 percent of students report \u201coverwhelming anxiety\u201d and \u201cfeeling very sad,\u201d respectively, in the past 12 months. Two-fifths (40 percent) of students reported that this sadness made it difficult for them to function.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Just under 12 percent of students reported thinking of killing themselves with 1.7 percent of students reporting a suicide attempt in the prior 12 months.\u00a0\u00a0Based on the Center for Collegiate Mental Health\u2019s annual report, college counseling centers have reported a 30 to 40 percent increase in service use over the past seven years. Students with anxiety, depression and \u201cthreats to self,\u201d i.e., self-injury, thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts, lead the utilization of campus mental health services.<\/p>\n

\u201cA strong network and sense of belonging to a community can help to decrease suicide risk,\u201d said Scott. \u201cRelatively speaking, college students have a lower rate of suicide than their peers who are not enrolled in college because they have a built-in community. However, campuses across the country are seeing a need to make changes to their mental health programming to help support students with anxiety and depression. Our work with this grant is focused on strengthening the community infrastructure to better support these students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018Connect to Wellness\u2019 grant will institute a variety of approaches to help address the mental health needs of students with additional attention to military-affiliated and transfer students. By improving the infrastructure of our campus services through early identification, screening, and online therapy assist programming, Monmouth hopes to increase access to services prior to the need for crisis intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cConnect to Wellness\u201d is funded by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), with matching funds from the university. Dr. Scott was notified by SAMHSA in July that Monmouth was, for the second time, a recipient of the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant. The $101,963 award is renewable for up to three years, totaling nearly $306,000, which the university will continue to match.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt is a great honor for Monmouth to have received a Garrett Lee Smith grant for a second time,\u201d said Scott.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cSince SAMHSA began funding these grants in 2005, only 8 percent of campuses have ever received the grant a second time.\u00a0\u00a0Receiving this funding not once, but twice is a true testament to the work of Monmouth University and the commitment Monmouth has to student mental health and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monmouth University was a previous recipient of the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant for a project co-directed by Scott from 2012-2016. The grant program memorializes\u00a0Garrett Lee Smith, son of former Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith. After his son\u2019s death by suicide in 2004 on the day before his 22nd birthday, Sen. Smith proposed the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, which recognized suicide as the third leading cause of death among youth ages 10 to 24 at the time. Unfortunately, this rate has since moved to the second leading cause of death for this age group. Eventually, the Act would allow campuses, tribes, and states to apply for and receive grants to help them\u00a0prevent tragedies like Garrett\u2019s from devastating other families.<\/p>\n

The earlier grant funds were used to support the\u00a0Promoting Wellness and Resiliency program at Monmouth University. The program was a university and community partnership designed to enhance prevention, identification, and service utilization for all students, particularly those with mental and behavioral health problems, which elevate their risk for suicide ideation, attempts, and completions. More than 2,500 gatekeepers, including counselors, faculty, administrators, and others from both on campus and in the surrounding community received training through the program during the grant term.<\/p>\n

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month\u2014a time to share resources and\u00a0information, support individuals and families affected by suicide, raise awareness, and connect individuals with suicidal ideation to treatment and support. \u00a0If you or someone you know is in an emergency, call\u00a0911\u00a0immediately. If you are in crisis or are experiencing difficult or suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at\u00a01-800-273 TALK (8255).\u00a0\u00a0For additional resources and training opportunities, please visit the SRF Suicide Prevention Research and Training Project website at\u00a0www.monmouth.edu\/school-of-social-work\/srf\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monmouth receives prestigious federal grant funding for a second time WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. (Sept. 6, 2018)\u2014 Monmouth University is launching a new, federally funded effort to create a stronger, broader infrastructure to prevent suicides on campus. Michelle Scott, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the SRF Suicide Prevention Research and Training Project in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":443,"featured_media":40802230476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,322],"tags":[],"person":[470],"audience":[],"school":[98],"program":[],"class_list":["post-40802230472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-faculty-accomplishments","mediacontact-morganne-dudzinski-director-of-news-public-affairs","person-mscott","school-social-work"],"squareimage":{"id":40802230688,"rendered":"\"\"","original":{"url":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2018\/09\/Prof-Michelle-Scott-News.jpg","width":560,"height":560}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802230472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/443"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802230472"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802230472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802230844,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802230472\/revisions\/40802230844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40802230476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802230472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802230472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802230472"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=40802230472"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=40802230472"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=40802230472"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=40802230472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}