The program, "Project Thrive: Building resilience and well-being for student success" aims to build UWEC's capacity to provide well-coordinated, evidence-based services that help students thrive and reduce the risk for school failure due to mental health and AODA problems. This will be accomplished by 1) improving identification and intervention with students at-risk; 2) enhancing treatment services provided to all students; 3) developing programming to prevent the emergence or worsening of mental and substance use disorders, including suicide risk; and 4) building a centralized, collaborative network of service providers. This program will be delivered to the 10,000+ enrolled students annually, targeting our campus's high-risk populations such as students of color, military veterans, and LGBTQ+ students.
The proposed program has four primary objectives driving our activities:
1) Reduce, by 15% each year of the grant, the number of students withdrawing/taking a leave of absence from school due to mental health/substance use/suicide.
2) By the end of the grant, reduce by 15% the number of students being hospitalized for severe psychiatric symptoms, suicide risk, and/or substance detox by enhancing mental health services.
3) Increase prevention outreach programming by 30% in each year of the grant to prevent the development or worsening of mental health/substance use disorders, including suicide, among students.
4) By the end of the first year, create a centralized wellness team to improve coordination of mental health, substance use reduction, and suicide prevention efforts on campus and in the community that will grow by at least 2 partners each year thereafter.
To achieve these objectives, we will provide information and training throughout the year to students, faculty, and staff regarding effective response to students with mental health and substance use disorders. We will implement voluntary screening programs and create new programs for under-represented students to strengthen connections and perceived support on campus. Specialty and evidence-based interventions will be expanded along with substance use intervention, prevention, and recovery services. Our prevention programming and outreach will grow each year to support coping and life-skills among students, and a centralized wellness network will be created to support prevention and intervention services. This program is guided by the SPRC comprehensive approach to suicide prevention to ensure a comprehensive, well-coordinated, and sustainable infrastructure is created to reduce the adverse consequences of mental health and substance use disorders, including suicide and school failure, on our campus.