SH:ARE - Self Harm: Assess,Respond,and Eliminate - Juniata College, located in Huntingdon, PA, requests funding for a project titled SH:ARE (Self Harm: Assess, Respond, Eliminate). This project will serve all Juniata students (approximately 1,300) annually and will especially focus on traditionally underrepresented populations. SH:ARE will be a comprehensive, collaborative, well-coordinated, and evidencebased approach to enhancing the mental-health infrastructure in and around Juniata College. More specifically, SH:ARE is designed to serve a Juniata student population characterized by a high degree of diversity, including 14% domestic minority, 27% LGBTQ+, 31% first generation, and 13% neurodiverse (differences in learning and/or socialization capabilities). Evidence presented in the project shows these groups, plus athletes (especially male athletes), to be at high risk for negative mental health outcomes, in part because they tend to underutilize mental health services due to stigma and social conditioning. The most common issues reported among all students include anxiety (67.2%), depression (57.3%), stress (45.2%), family (31.2), academic performance (23.7%), relationship problem (32.4%), and interpersonal functioning (25.2%). Other concerns include identity-related stress, disordered eating, self-harm, addiction, and substance use/abuse, sexual assault, cultural concerns, and self-esteem. As the centerpiece of this project, Juniata will partner with local and regional mentalhealth services to create the Mental Health Campus-Community Coalition (MHCCC). Creating the Coalition, which will achieve its goals through a combination of prevention training, support services, internal information sharing, community awareness and prevention campaigns, development of response protocols, and case reviews, is one of the key project goals. Other specific goals include (1) developing campus awareness of the role and impact of substance use on students’ mental well-being, including implementing screening for mental health and assessments, and (2) reducing stigma and normalizing mental health and well-being practices among students, using techniques such as self-care, mindfulness, and mental health help-seeking. Specific objectives include implementing QPR Gatekeeper training and mental health first aid workshops; developing Coalition member MOUs; expanding the Lead Counselor position and hiring addition identity-aligned tele-counselors and implementing several on-line mental health training and tools. These objectives link to the goals of the project. The College has significant experience providing outreach and coordinating with organizations to serve students’ mental health needs. Glaeser Counseling Center has been providing clinical counseling services to students for more than two decades. Through consecutive and ongoing U.S. DOJ/OVAW Campus Grants, Juniata also has experience with campus-community response teams with internal and external partners. SH:ARE will create its Coalition based on this model and will serve all Juniata students in the first year and approximately 2,000 students over the life of the three-year grant.
