The University of Tampa Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention Progam - The University of Tampa Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention Program aims to make mental health and wellbeing inescapable for students by building a wider net of proactive services. This will allow us to identify and serve students who need to receive counseling services as well as those that need skill building workshops, wellness coaching or community connection programs to teach them to manage their own mental wellbeing. Over the past 4 years, The University of Tampa (UT) has increased their commitment to improving student mental health and wellbeing and suicide prevention through a strategic 4-year partnership with JED Campus, focused on building a comprehensive strategic plan to build student mental health and wellbeing and reduce suicide. A strong mental health taskforce dedicated to improving student mental health and wellbeing has guided this project. There is more work to be done to resolve the gap in services needed to address the mental health and wellbeing of all students, not just those that seek counseling. We propose to do this with the following three goals and objectives and will market these programs to underserved populations. The first goal is to increase faculty, staff, and student capacity to identify high-risk students, refer to appropriate resources and encourage help-seeking behavior. This will be done by coordinating 3 different mental health gatekeeper trainings involving a variety of time commitments: How to Help a Friend Training, 1 hour, reaching a minimum of 200 students per year, totaling 600 over the grant period; Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training, 2-hour, 100 faculty, staff and students per year, 300 per grant period; and Mental Health First Aid Training, 100 faculty, staff and students per year, 300 per grant year. The second goal is to increase students' ability to manage stress, anxiety, and other emotions productively to reduce substance abuse, build resiliency and decrease risk of suicide. We are proposing three programs to address this goal. Wellness Skill Based Workshops will be implemented that teach students useful tools to feel more confident in their ability to manage distress. The first year of the grant will be spent developing the workshops and training a facilitator, with a minimum of 50 students completing in the second year and 75 students the third year, totaling 125 students. A Peer Wellness Coaching program will be developed during the first year of the grant, including hiring and training of 4 student coaches. Year two, a minimum of 25 students will complete coaching, and year 3, 50 students will complete, totaling in 75 over the project. Lastly, a faculty curriculum infusion model and teaching tips for supporting student mental health will be created and disseminated by the end of year one. By the end of the grant period, a minimum of 50 faculty will have utilized the modules and tips. Goal 3 is to increase students' sense of belonging to build resiliency and decrease risk of suicide. This will be done through two programs. The Spartan Connect Conversations program, a forum to help students get to know each other and develop friendships, will be created by December 2022, with 4 groups completed by the end of year one, minimum of 20 students in total. Year 2 and 3 will have 12 conversation groups each, with a minimum of 60 students completing totaling 28 groups and 140 students. Secondly, awareness and utilization of the UT Recovery Community will increase by implementing a marketing campaign, providing weekly support meetings and case management for members, and providing recovery ally training to the University Community beginning in grant year 2, as these trainings will be done by student leaders in the community. Three trainings will occur during year 2 and 3, reaching at least 30 faculty, staff and students per year, totaling 60.
