Building capacity for suicide intervention in post-secondary institutions

Our Community Learning and Engagement programs foster resilience and hope, and build capacity in individuals, organizations and communities. Partnering with post-secondary institutions is a growing part of what we do, and represents a powerful opportunity to intervene and make a real difference in the lives of students, faculty and their networks. 

Students in post-secondary institutions can face myriad challenges: the pressure of deadlines, social dynamics, financial issues – further exacerbated by being in a new and unfamiliar environment away from home. Challenges can be amplified for international students and newcomers who may be isolated and missing home.

In early 2022, we connected with University Canada West, which was facing low utilization of support services, despite a growing international student population and increasing staff workload.

Before our intervention:

• Staff turnover was high (80%). Staff felt overwhelmed and unequipped to manage student mental health concerns, including suicide ideation and crisis situations.
• Staff lacked confidence in discussing challenges with students and creating safety plans.

Partnering with UCW, our Community Learning and Engagement team set out to develop a comprehensive training program, focused on building staff and students’ resiliency and increasing their capacity to support each other. 

The partnership initially aimed to address the issue that staff were acting as “paraprofessionals”, providing mental health support but without the training they needed to do so effectively. Staff retention was low as they struggled to do the work they had been hired to do while also supporting students who were experiencing increasing stress and mental health crises. 

We focused on building psychological safety as a first principle in our approach. As the partnership moved into its second year, we tailored its content to address recognizing early signs of burnout and taking preventive steps to stop it from occurring. 

We have since developed service pillars to indicate various steps that students and staff are encouraged to take on their journey to become more proficient in taking care of their psychological health. We have fostered stronger support networks, created more psychological safety for students and staff, and strengthened their skill sets for crisis and suicide prevention work, allowing them to offer better support to each other.

Moving towards these early interventions and preventative approaches, we have seen staff retention increase from 20% to 80%. Staff feel better equipped to respond to their students’ needs and support them in creating safety plans and managing their mental health.

This partnership is a success story that continues to develop, based on the data and feedback we collect and the needs of those working at UCW. It is not difficult to imagine that these positive results went beyond those who took the training, extending to the external community of those who interact with the staff and students of UCW. By training students and staff to recognize the signs of burnout and mental health crises in themselves and others, we are creating an environment where everyone can feel more supported.