Last week’s #WITwants2know question revealed that 83% of our respondents know that the services provided by the Center for Wellness and Disability Services include (free and confidential) counseling. This is positive news as we want to be sure that all students are aware of the available mental health and wellness resources.
Recently, Wentworth became a member of The JED Foundation Campus Program, an initiative designed to enhance existing resources related to mental health, substance abuse, and suicide prevention. There are 9 areas within the Campus Program Framework.
They include
: policy, systems, and strategic planning; developing life skills; connectedness; academic performance; student wellness; identifying students at risk; increasing self-help behavior; mental health and substance use disorder services; and means restriction and environmental safety.
A campus team, comprised of representatives from student affairs, faculty, athletics, enrollment management, academics, wellness and disability services, and students have completed the institutional self-assessment and have finalized details of various strategies to promote mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Some of this work has already begun.
Last week, over 20 individuals attended the EPIC FAILURE program with Professor O’Brien and Profeessor Wiseman. Each spoke of the possibilities that may arise when we fail. When we are in the moment, failure can seem like an overwhelming experience. But, as O’Brien and Wiseman so nicely described, failure is a tremendous opportunity for learning.
Other strategies that the committee is developing for the 2016-2017 academic year include, and are not limited to, expanded training to faculty and peer advisors to identify students who may be struggling, the implementation of a good samaritan policy, and the creation of an education campaign around the risks of opiate and prescription drug misuse.
A big thanks to our campus committee who has been working on this initiative for a few months, including Maura Mulligan, director of wellness and disability services, who has been leading the committee.
To learn more about The JED Foundation Campus Program, please visit http://www.thecampusprogram.org/learn-about-campusprogram