ECU to pilot interactive software as part of suicide prevention grant
Users of Kognito engage with interactive modules that simulate conversations with peers and allow the user to select the most appropriate conversations to have based on issues presented. (ECU Photo)
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A three-year, $302,629 grant is helping the Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation Studies at East Carolina University address the risk factors associated with suicide on campus.
The grant, Suicide Education and Prevention at ECU, was funded by the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention program at the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration. It is aimed at engaging ECU faculty, staff and students to increase their knowledge and skills for identifying and addressing the underlying factors most frequently associated with suicide. The project originated with former faculty member Dr. Shari Sias and is directed by Dr. Leigh Atherton, principal investigator and assistant professor in the College of Allied Health Sciences’ Department of Addictions and Rehabilitation Studies.
One of the grant team’s primary plans is piloting the use of Kognito online interactive software aimed at increasing suicide awareness and prevention skills. Users of Kognito engage with interactive modules that simulate conversations with peers and allow the user to select the most appropriate conversations to have based on issues presented. The grant purchased three modules for use with ECU’s at-risk, LGBTQ and student veteran populations.
“What I love most about it is it’s not a flip screen or PowerPoint that goes through the facts and figures,” Atherton said. “There’s a little bit of information — risk factors, things you want to be mindful of with your peer group and what people may go through. … It demonstrates how to have a conversation about stressors or the risk factors that are often associated with suicide.”
Grant staff will present to freshmen orientation courses this fall and in the spring of 2020, discussing common risk factors associated with suicide and discuss how students can best approach peers they may be concerned about. Students from those classes will then be invited to participate in the pilot program for Kognito, taking the approximately 30-minute module and providing feedback on how the software might be better tailored for ECU students. The grant team will then use that feedback to adjust the modules.
“The purpose of Kognito is how to identify risk factors within your peers and engage them before suicide’s even crossed their mind,” Atherton said. “Some may be at that level, but the hope is that it’s a preventative process where getting them connected, feeling support from peers will prevent the progression to where suicide is considered.”
ECU students are already required to complete similar online programs as incoming freshmen and transfer students.
“Our goal is by fall of 2020 to work with ECU administration to have it implemented within the ECU system, just like AlcoholEDU and other modules so that all incoming students have to go through at least the at-risk population module,” Atherton said.
The grant team will also host Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) workshops for those on campus who are most likely to encounter students in crisis, including Student Affairs staff and other counseling service clinics.
Atherton emphasized the importance for everyone on campus to be able to recognize the risk-factors associated with suicide, helping them to feel comfortable having those conversations and understanding the resources available for those who may need them.
“We’re trying to create a campus that is aware and in-tuned to the risk factors associated with crisis,” he said. “Suicide is within the name of the grant, but really suicide is an event at the highest pinnacle of risk. All of our work is focused on preventing it getting close to that, let alone to that point. And if an individual is moving that direction, (we want them to be) able to respond to it, but the goal is to help before that happens.”
Suicide Education and Prevention at ECU grant team
Dr. Leigh Atherton – principal investigator/project director; assistant professor in the Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Dr. Valerie Kisler-Van Reede – training director; director of ECU’s Center for Counseling and Student Development
Dr. Celeste Crawford – clinical coordinator; clinical assistant professor and director of Navigate Counseling Clinic in the Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Dr. Stephen Leierer – program evaluator; associate professor in the Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Dana Cea – graduate research assistant; Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Lindley Cherry – graduate research assistant; Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Hillary DodgeEvans – graduate research assistant; Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
Leah Riddell – graduate research assistant; Department of Addictions & Rehabilitation Studies
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