The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/277771
Spring 2014 41 doing this on a college campus before he got it rolling at WPI. College counseling centers have traditionally focused on "gate- keeper" training, in which university faculty and staff are seen as be- ing in the best position to spot students in distress and refer them to the counseling center. If students were given tips on mental health resources and warning signs of mental distress, the sessions were usually one-time events in a large room. Morse, who makes it his business to get out of the offce and talk with students as of- ten as possible, sensed that these approaches, while valuable, were safety nets with gaping holes; that is, many students resisted talking with adults about their problems, perhaps out of fear of judgment, and would instead confde in a friend—who often felt unsure about how to respond, what to say, who to tell. "One of the things that really stood out for me," says the soft- spoken Morse, "was that students had been turning to each other for help already, but a lot of the helping students didn't know how to respond. So our thinking was: Students are already out there try- ing to support each other, so let's put together a program that helps them in their natural supporting role." His breakthrough came when federal grant funding became avail- able for college suicide-prevention programs through the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2004. The act was created by U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R- Oregon), whose 21-year-old son committed suicide in 2003. Morse applied for and received funding in the second round of grants in 2006, and began to map out the network idea. He sought out students in leadership positions who were already connected to on-campus networks—"the kind of students other stu- dents go to," as he puts it, such as dorm resident assistants, athletic team captains, or those active in groups like sororities, fraternities, and campus ministry. He had a hunch they were well-placed to ben- eft from SSN training. When Morse emailed these students with his proposal, he got a big response. He knew he was onto something. The 50-minute trainings, held once a week for six weeks, allow groups of 15–18 students to practice role-playing exercises, hold discussions, and try self-discovery exercises. There is a strong focus on empathetic listening and resisting the impulse to fx things by offering advice or hearty encouragement, the trap most of us in- stinctively fall into—"It'll get better" or "Maybe you need to exercise more!" Students are not trained to take on the role of counselors; they are given guidance on how to listen, how to provide empathy, and how to skillfully guide troubled students to the trained profes- sionals who are just fve minutes or a phone call away. Students intuitively clicked with the SSN approach right away. "Students are experts on the undergraduate experience at WPI," insists Zach Arnold '15, a computer science and applied mathemat- ics major who became an SSN member this past fall. "You can do as many studies as you want, but until you're living it, you don't know." As Kristen Schleier describes it, "to SSN" has become a verb at WPI, as in, "Hey, are you SSN-ing me right now?" Seniors nominate younger students for training, and many students who frst met Charlie Morse and his staff after being guided to the center eventu- ally become so involved in mental health advocacy on campus that they take the training themselves, and don the grey hoodie. Among them is Schleier, who became an SSN member in the fall of her sophomore year and now also works with the Active Minds suicide prevention chapter on campus, using her training to look out for young students who, like her freshman self, have gone adrift. The upstate New York native came to WPI knowing she needed to learn about lever bearing gear, pressure beam strain, and thermo- dynamics; now she also fnds herself talking about peer advocacy, empathy, and mind-body relaxation strategies. She has found that her SSN training has given her a toolkit for her own life, as well. "SSN gives you the skills to help you handle situations you might not have known how to handle before college," Schleier says. "It teaches you empathy, crisis management, communication—things that don't necessarily think you need in college. But they are valu- able skills. Particularly for the workplace, where you need to deal with project teams or manage people. Being empathetic and hav- ing the ability to communicate with others without making them defensive, those are critical skills to have." J Emulating Success f or all its reputation as "the best years of your life," college is a challenging time for even the most grounded young person. It is a period of huge transition, new temptations, and an uncer- tain future, all of which can trigger stress, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and other issues. According to the American College Health Association, at some point during each year 50 percent of college students experience overwhelming anxiety, 30 percent experience symptoms of depression that make it diffcult for them to function, 6.6 per- cent consider suicide, and 1.1 percent report actually making an attempt. Many of these students never initiate a visit to their college counseling center, which is why the Student Support Network model created at WPI has been embraced by many other center directors as a way to reach students who might otherwise be slipping through the cracks. "I do think it's catching on as a model," says Jennifer T. D'Andrea, direc- tor of Counseling and Psychological Services at Wesleyan University, who frst read about SSN online several years ago while doing research on best practices. Wesleyan's version of SSN is called WESupport and has been in place for two years. Other universities have adapted it to ft their particular campuses. At the University of North Carolina, the program is called Friends Helping Friends; at Cornell, it's Friend2Friend; at Boston University, it's the Boston University Suicide Prevention Program. Some have borrowed or adapted the idea of the "We've Got Your Back" hood- ies—at Connecticut College it's T-shirts, at Castleton State in Vermont it's baseball caps. WPI_spring14_features1.indd 41 3/9/14 12:12 PM