Frequently Asked Questions

What information and materials are useful for a college to consider when planning suicide prevention initiatives on campus?

Following are some materials that may help in your effort to build a suicide prevention program on your campus.

As you build your initiatives, please send us supporting documentation to add to our library. Others will benefit from your experiences.

1. Suicide Prevention Interventions. These two diagrams represent The Jed Foundation’s concept for structuring suicide prevention efforts at a university. The first diagram (13K pdf file) describes eight areas under which programs and services can be developed; the diagram combines elements of a medical and public health approach. The second diagram (8K pdf file) uses Dr. David Shaffer’s suicide model to demonstrate why each of these intervention areas are potentially useful in preventing suicides.
2. Law and Policy re: College Student Suicide. Included is a: (1) one-page overview clarifying confidentiality issues and FERPA; and (2) a Stetson Law Review article (190K pdf file) that addresses law and policy responses to serious forms of self-inflicted injury. It also discusses suicide case law on colleges, which supports implementing active prevention programs.
3. Suicide Assessment Checklist. This checklist is used by the Cornell University Counseling and Psychological Services to evaluate virtually every student that comes into the service for an appointment.
4. MIT materials. Included is the: (1) MIT Mental Health Task Force Report (121K pdf file), which presents the results of the Task Force discussions regarding the issues of mental health at MIT and ways to improve the support services available to MIT students; (2) draft of the letter and questionnaire (8K pdf file) that MIT sends to all incoming freshman (note that MIT follows up with students who respond affirmatively to one of the questions); and (3) Mental Health Survey (46K pdf file), based on one developed by MIT, that surveys student opinions about the mental health services provided by the school.
5. Air Force. These documents (program, outcomes, article) describe the program initiatives and outcomes of the Air Force suicide prevention program, which resulted in significant reductions in the suicide rate. Leadership messages and changing social norms to promote social support and help-seeking behaviors were critical components of the Air Force approach to suicide prevention. Because the Air Force is a closed community, it serves as an interesting model for colleges to review when developing suicide prevention programs.
6. University of Illinois. This paper describes a suicide prevention program (122K pdf file) that was implemented at the University of Illinois beginning in 1984. At the core of the program was a policy that required any student who threatened or attempted suicide to attend four sessions of professional assessment.
7. University of British Columbia. This report (78K pdf file) describes the risk factors that lead to suicidal behavior among students and presents a series of recommendations for addressing suicide prevention at the University of British Columbia.
8. Confidentiality Policies. Students often cite confidentiality as a reason for not accessing counseling services. It is imperative to clearly explain the university’s confidentiality policy in both materials available to students and parents. In addition, the confidentiality policy should be clearly explained on the counseling center’s web site. Included are some examples (Cornell (7K pdf file), Harvard (9K pdf file)) of confidentiality policies.

9. Crisis and Postvention Protocols. Colleges should have protocols in place that address high-risk behavior and suicide attempts, including a crisis protocol as well as medical leave and re-entry policies. Postvention protocols are also very important to ensure the community gets appropriate support as well as to reduce the likelihood of copycats. In all protocols, roles and responsibilities of college and university officials should be clearly indicated.

10. Mental Health Leader. While the titles differ from campus to campus, several colleges have recently created a new position on their campuses to oversee student mental health and overall emotional well being. This individual is typically responsible for ensuring a seamless network among the various departments and organizations that contribute to student mental health and well being and implementing the college’s student mental health strategy.

11. Committee or Task Force on Campus Mental Health. Many colleges have begun the process of examining the issues of suicide prevention and student mental health on their campuses by establishing a representative committee/task force of faculty, staff, administrators, and students to systemically address the issue. Some of the activities that such a committee can undertake include a student needs assessment, an inventory and evaluation of mental health support services, and protocol development.

12. Exemplary Suicide Prevention Programs. Prepared by EDC, this document summarizes 40 youth suicide prevention programs that are or were in operation within the last 15 years, that have been formally or informally evaluated, and that appear to be replicable.

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