Sunday, May 19, 2024
5/19/2024
Fort Lewis College (FLC), a Native American Serving Non-Tribal Institution, seeks funding for its Suicide and Substance Use Prevention Project, serving all FLC students who may be at risk for suicide or substance use disorders. This project builds capacity for FLC to solidify and implement a comprehensive campus care model and mental health strategic plan for suicide and substance use prevention. It also aims to increase the capacity of FLC’s Counseling Center (CC) and Wellness Peer Advisory Council (WellPAC) to better meet the needs of its diverse student body, which is estimated at 3,300. FLC students consistently report higher rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideation and substance use than national benchmarks. FLC seeks to become a JED Campus Partner to help solidify a comprehensive campus care model and to gain access to data, resources, and interventions such as “You Can Help” trainings that will increase knowledge and capacity across campus. FLC also seeks to fund a Basic Needs Coordinator, a Coordinator of Student Well-being, and several Student Well-being Education Instructors to deliver basic needs, mental health and substance use education through trainings, life skills groups and workshops, outreach and awareness, and by connecting students to the resources needed for success. By the end of the first academic year of this project, FLC expects to become an official JED campus, to form a task force to oversee project efforts, and to offer a minimum of 10 trauma informed mental health education and suicide prevention trainings to an estimated 200 individuals. By the end of year two of this project, FLC will have developed and begun to implement a comprehensive, strategic suicide and substance use prevention plan, including formation of a multi-disciplinary taskforce to guide the work. FLC will also have increased students’ on-campus access to substance use recovery resources via community partnerships for treatment and peer recovery and/or increasing CC staff member expertise in substance use disorder treatment by training or by hiring specialized staff. By year three, FLC will have trained all student-facing employees (about 450) and over 200 students in these training courses, expanding the support net and preparing our community for difficult conversations with individuals who may be struggling. FLC CC will also pilot a program that seeks to offer alternative healing based in Indigenous practices, by partnering with regional Indigenous experts and service providers. FLC expects to offer a combination of educational presentations on traditional Indigenous healing and wellness as well as ceremonial support groups at least four times per academic year for the life of the project, serving over 250 community members, as part of a strategy of increasing sense of belonging and culturally responsive campus services of Indigenous students. This project aims to reach at least an estimated 900 individuals over the next three years. The goal of the project is to enhance our institution’s community of care model by training more community members in trauma-informed mental health prevention/intervention skills and broadening our therapeutic offerings to better meet the needs of our Indigenous students. Once executed, these outcomes should enable students to received needed, preventative support earlier on, and then decrease numbers of students needing crisis services and therefore decrease wait-times in our CC, allowing us to better meet the needs of our marginalized students.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
