Chatham Receives Federal Grant to Support Suicide Awareness and Prevention
Chatham University’s Counseling and Wellness Center is the recipient of an approximately $100,0000 three-year Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The grant will fund The Jed X Smith (JXS) Project, which is named for the combination of JED Campus expertise, Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention grant support, and “X” to honor Chatham students who have died by suicide or overdose. The overall aim of the JXS Project at Chatham is to enhance student wellbeing, increase help seeking and awareness of suicide and MH/SUD prevention, and decrease suicide and overdose events. The goals and objectives of the JXS Project are to:
Enhance mental health services by increasing staffing, consultation, and services offered;
Increase messaging campaigns to prevent suicide and mental health/substance use disorders;
Increase messaging campaigns to promote help-seeking behaviors;
Identify and serve students at risk of suicide by training faculty, staff, and students; and
Minimize suicide events by disseminating suicide prevention resources and decreasing access to lethal means.
The JXS Project will train three mental health professionals and 210 community members; serve 678 students with individual evidence-based practices (EBP) and 48 to 60 in EBP support groups & recovery services; increase awareness for 1,625+ students; and collaborate with student groups and experts. The JXS Project will increase the services offered, the number of students served, and reduce disparities in service use so all students are well served.
This Project builds upon a history of five federal grants over the last ten years within Chatham’s School of Health Sciences with projects addressing health disparities, underserved and at risk-populations, and workforce development. Three of these five grants included training elements focusing on suicide awareness and prevention and substance use disorder (SUD) education (SBIRT). This is Chatham’s second SAMHSA grant, but the first to be held under the Office of Student Affairs and the Counseling and Wellness Center.
The Project Director is Dr. Jennifer Q. Morse (Professor, Counseling Psychology, Co-Director of the HAPPY Project), and the Co-Director is Cindy Kerr, Director of the Office of Academic & Accessibility Resources (OARR). The Project is a highly collaborative one, partnering with Chatham students, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), JED Campus’s multidisciplinary team comprised of faculty and staff members across the University, and stakeholders in the mental health community locally.
“I’m really excited to have additional resources to partner with students to hear what they would find most helpful and engaging in terms of improving their emotional wellbeing and decreasing suicidal and overdose behaviors,” said Dr. Jennifer Morse. “The grant will allow us to hire additional staff to connect with students and to offer more services.”
The project described was supported by Grant Number H79SM086316 from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the SAMHSA.
About the Garret Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Program
The purpose of this Program is to support a comprehensive public health and evidence-based approach that: (1) enhances mental health services for all college students, including those at risk for suicide, depression, serious mental illness (SMI)/serious emotional disturbances (SED), and/or substance use disorders that can lead to school failure; (2) prevents and reduces suicide, and mental and substance use disorders; (3) promotes help-seeking behavior; and (4) improves the identification and treatment of at-risk college students so they can successfully complete their studies. It is expected that this program will help to identify students who are at risk for suicide and suicide attempts, increase protective factors that promote mental health, reduce risk factors for suicide, and ultimately reduce suicides and suicide attempts.
About Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance the behavioral health of the nation. SAMHSA's mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities.