There are five core modules: Foundations, Recognize, Respond, Refer, and Re-Engage. Each module builds important skills for intervening and provides examples to help faculty and staff understand what to do when a student is experiencing mental distress. When taken together, the modules provide a valuable guide for having conversations about suicide and can also increase instructors’ confidence in talking with students about mental health. The training is self-guided – learners can start, stop, and revisit portions of the training at any time. In total, the training takes about an hour to complete. 

“Faculty are encountering more and more students in our classrooms who need mental health support,” says Randy Stoecker, Professor in Community and Environmental Sociology. “This training is helpful not only for engaging with students experiencing suicidal thoughts but also with the students dealing with the anxiety, depression, and other mental health traumas of living in this time and place.” 

You do not need to be an expert to notice the warning signs of a mental health crisis and act. Some of the most important relationships UW-Madison students have on campus include faculty and staff mentors, supervisors, advisors, and instructors. National data shows that 16 percent of students report having already talked with academic personnel about mental health impacting their academics. 

“We encourage all faculty and staff to participate in the training and share this opportunity with colleagues,” said Valerie Donovan, UHS Population Health Manager. “We value faculty and staff partnership in campus-wide prevention efforts, and this training provides an important overview of strategies and resources that we all can use to support UW-Madison students and prevent suicide.” 

“I found the suicide prevention training to be applicable for all student populations,” says Elaine Goetz-Berman, Graduate and Professional Student Assistance Specialist in the Dean of Students Office. “Anybody who works directly with students should take this training is order to feel best equipped to have difficult conversations should it ever come up, and also because it helps to create a caring community on campus.” 

The training does not offer immediate support or services to those in distress. Instead, it prepares faculty and staff to be better able to support students in the future. If you are in crisis, call the UHS 24-hour crisis line at 608-265-5600 (option 9) or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255. 

Suicide Prevention Training for UW-Madison Students is also available in Canvas. This training has been available to students since Fall 2019. 

Questions can be directed to suicideprevention@uhs.wisc.edu  

One part of this initiative is the Healthy Academics Toolkit, a data-driven tool to support a shift in policies, practices, and pedagogies in classrooms, research labs, and advising offices. The toolkit offers an interactive data visualization for instructors to understand the unique needs of the student populations they serve. Data are linked to specific strategies and resources that can be implemented in learning environments to proactively support the health and well-being of undergraduate and graduate students.  

At UW-Madison, students indicated that in the past year they were more likely to turn to their instructors for support related to mental health concerns than their peers. Furthermore, a recent multi-university survey  found that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty have been more engaged with student mental health issues, with 80 percent of respondents reporting they communicated with students one-on-one on the phone, video, or email about mental health and well-being during the past year. Yet at the same time, some faculty report feeling unprepared to address this increased need and navigate the emotional labor involved. This highlights the importance of providing faculty with the training and resources to support students’ mental health and well-being as an ongoing and integral component of teaching and learning.  

“It is our hope that the resources and strategies embedded within the Toolkit can be engrained into the culture and practices of our academic environments to cultivate a more equitably healthy campus” says Claire Barrett, UHS Healthy Academics Manager and trained psychologist. 

UW-Madison students who hold one or more marginalized identities are more likely to report a lower sense of belonging, decreased levels of flourishing, and higher rates of mental health concerns. Likewise, students of color are already at increased risk for psychological distress due to issues of racism, while at the same time being less likely to seek mental health treatment.  The learning environment is a crucial setting for creating an equitably healthy campus that fosters well-being through classroom culture, trauma-informed practices, advisor relationships, decreased stigma regarding mental health issues, and instructor knowledge and skill to support students in distress. 

“The Healthy Academics Toolkit is an important resource for faculty that is both informative and interactive and helps illuminate the link between academic environments and well-being. The interactive data visualizations are fun to play with, while conveying important results from (among other sources) The Healthy Minds Study,” said Morton Gernsbacher, Vilas Professor and the Sir Frederic C. Bartlett Professor of Psychology. “The Health-Promoting Strategies & Resources page provides nearly a dozen recommendations for strategies and policies, including valuable templates for syllabus statements.” 

Instructor support of students is never intended to replace professional, clinical support that is needed by students; rather, is integral to creating a culture of care across campus. Resources available through the Healthy Academics Toolkit are intended to increase instructors’ knowledge and confidence with responding to students in distress and creating conditions where all students can thrive at UW-Madison.  

To further support mental health, UHS Prevention and Campus Health Initiatives has also developed a new suicide prevention training for UW-Madison faculty and staff that will be available soon. The interactive, asynchronous training was developed in response to faculty- and staff-identified needs. It covers skill-based topics such as responding to students in distress and referring students to campus resources. UHS Mental Health Services offers ongoing consultation for instructors who may have questions regarding how best to support a student, when to involve other professionals, or how best to get a student connected with services. Crisis consultation services are available for students 24/7 hours a day by calling the UHS Crisis Line at 608-265-5600 (option 9). 

Dear UW-Madison faculty and staff,

I am requesting your support in helping prevent the spread of COVID-19 (or novel coronavirus) in our community. We’re reminding those faculty and staff who are either planning or returning from international trips to follow a set of additional precautions.

• For those faculty and staff returning from Italy, South Korea and mainland China or any other country under a Level 3 CDC Travel Health Notice, when you arrive home, you should not return to the workplace for 14 days. To protect the community, you should self-quarantine for 14 days and monitor for symptoms (fever, cough, shortness of breath) during this time. This guidance applies to both personal and business-related trips. Self-quarantine or isolation means staying at home and not going to your workplace, campus or out in your community. Please contact your supervisor or HR representative for more information about remote work and leave options; campus policies for these remain in effect.
• For those returning from any location under a Level 2 CDC Travel Health Notice, we advise that when you arrive home, you self-monitor for 14 days for symptoms (fever, cough, shortness of breath).
• If you develop symptoms, please call your health provider before going to seek care.
• In addition, if you have upcoming international travel plans for either Spring Break or other business-related reasons, it is advisable to reconsider them. There could be substantial travel delays and/or new restrictions, along with possible prolonged isolation when you return home, with significant impact on your personal and professional plans.

The CDC maintains a travel information website related to COVID-19, and specifically recommends avoiding all nonessential travel to countries at Warning Level 3. If you have travel insurance, you may want to review your plan to ensure it does not exclude pandemic outbreaks. UW-Madison’s CISI international health and medical insurance policy specifically excludes security evacuation due to the risk of pandemic/epidemic disease, although the medical evacuation benefit for a traveler who falls ill due to disease and requires further care remains intact under the policy.

UW–Madison continues to actively monitor this global health crisis, while also planning ahead to mitigate the impact should it spread more widely. UW-Madison is also reviewing plans in case of large-scale absenteeism of faculty and staff and how it could impact the semester.

To help prevent the spread of any disease, University Health Services recommends following these general best health practices to prevent sickness:

• Wash hands often with soap and water
• Avoid touching eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands
• Avoid close contact with people who are sick
• Stay home when sick
• Cover mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, and cough and sneeze into your elbow

If you have any questions about these recommendations, please contact your school, college or unit human resources representative. Additional guidance may be forthcoming.

Information about COVID-19 is available at the UHS COVID-19 informational website on uhs.wisc.edu.  This comprehensive website has resources, updates, and answers commonly asked questions about COVID-19.

I appreciate everyone’s support during this challenging situation. Our goal is to work together to ensure our students, faculty and staff, our campus and our community remain safe.

Jake Baggott
Executive Director, University Health Services
Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs/Health and Wellbeing