Blazer CARES: Campus Access, Referral, Education, and Suicide Prevention Project - The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) will implement Blazer CARES: Campus Access, Referral, Education, and Suicide Prevention, a four-year initiative to strengthen early identification, behavioral health screening, referral and follow-up, suicide prevention, crisis response, and access to care for approximately 20,905 students in Birmingham, Alabama. The population of focus includes all UAB students, with emphasis on first-year and first-generation students, student veterans, student leaders, and others at elevated behavioral health risk; students served will primarily be ages 18–35. Strategies include annual needs assessments, screening in clinical and non-clinical settings, standardized referral and care coordination protocols, an integrated campus-community crisis and referral network, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR), and Mental Health Advocate training, prevention workshops, outreach, 988 promotion, and recovery support. Objectives include implementing screening in at least five non-clinical settings; screening at least 300 students annually; documenting follow-up contact for at least 80% of students identified through screening and referral activities; training at least 1,200 students and 1,000 faculty and staff in QPR and at least 400 students and 200 faculty and staff in MHFA; and reaching at least 20,000 students annually through coordinated mental health and suicide prevention communications.
