According to a 2010 study by the Center for Disease Control, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among 15-to-24 year olds, accounting for about 20 percent of those deaths annually. Though several studies have found suicide rates among college students to be significantly lower than those of their non-student peers, NSU’s Office of Suicide and Violence Prevention raises awareness and educate the community on suicide prevention tactics.
Co-director Douglas Flemons, professor of family therapy in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said, “We do everything we can to help the university create a safety net, so when there are people who are desperate, there are others who recognize in some capacity that desperation and know what to do to make a difference.”
Scott Poland, professor in the Center for Psychology studies and co-director of the office, emphasized the importance of creating a dialogue on suicide.
“The first thing I want to emphasize is take action,” he said. “The only real risk is doing nothing.”
The office’s origins can be traced to 2004, when a Crisis Prevention Committee was formed at the direction of Ray Ferrero Jr., NSU’s president at the time, to educate faculty and staff on suicide, violence and related issues. Then, in 2007, partially in response to the Virginia Tech shootings, the Office of Suicide and Violence Prevention was developed to expand the university’s crisis prevention efforts. Each year, Poland and Flemons employ a psychology postdoctoral resident and a work-study student. This year the positions are filled by Shannon Worton and Stephanie Guedj.
The office’s website features a 27-minute training video for students and a 25-minute video for faculty and staff. According to Poland, new NSU faculty and staff are required to view the training video as part of their employee orientation, and he hopes to eventually find a way to widen the scope of student training.
Poland estimated that the office has done more than 300 in-person trainings on NSU’s main campus and several regional campuses, through which his colleagues teach participants how to help someone who may be suicidal.
“The whole point of the training is to help participants understand the suicidal person won’t simply ‘snap out of it,’” Poland said. “We cannot minimize it. We need to say ‘I’m here for you. You’re not the first person to feel this way. There’s help available and I’m going to get you that help.’ In a nutshell, that’s the focus of the training, both for staff and for students.”
Poland stresses the importance of the entire community, not just mental health professionals, being educated on suicide.
“A big part of our training is to try and overcome some of the myths that people have about suicide and to help them understand that we must talk about it more,” he said. “It’s something that many people are afraid to bring up. They somehow think they’re going to plant the idea in someone’s head, which is completely untrue … Everyone needs to be alert and if you see or hear something, share information.”
Flemons is equally proud of the office’s efforts and the university’s support of it.
“For the university to recognize that this is an issue everywhere and for them to proactively do something about it is fabulous,” Flemons said. “At so many places, there’s a tendency among the administrators to just wish that it would go away and say, ‘Maybe if we don’t look at it, we can ignore it.’ And the administration here is saying that this is an issue that needs to be addressed, that we need to protect people.”
Poland and Flemons recommend that students who are concerned about a friend, classmate or themselves speak with the Henderson Student Counseling Center, through which all students — undergraduate or graduate, part-time or full-time, and online or residential — are eligible for up to 10 sessions per year with a licensed therapist. Henderson also has a 24-hour crisis hotline, reachable at 954-424-6911.
Poland said, “It doesn’t matter where you’re an NSU student , call student counseling. In other words, you could be an online student or a distance student and that counseling center is still available to you via phone. You can call for yourself, or essentially, you can call about a consultation.”
Although the office also works on violence prevention, Poland advises against assuming that a suicidal person must also be violent.
“The bottom line is that the vast majority of suicidal individuals are not thinking of harming anyone but themselves,” Poland said. “And what happens is, when there is a murder-suicide, that gets local media and national media attention. And we sometimes are thinking ‘Wow, all these suicidal people might just kill somebody else.’ And while that does happen, it is extremely rare.”
In addition to suicide and violence, the office also works to combat common college stressors.
Poland said, “Let’s say the law school has a lot of students who are really worried with finals coming up, we could schedule not just trainings on suicide and violence prevention, but also on stress management and text anxiety.”
To learn more about the Office of Suicide and Violence Prevention, read about warning signs and prevention tactics, watch training videos and access other related resources, visit nova.edu/suicideprevention. To schedule a training session, email svp@nova.edu.
