Resources and Training for Higher Education Staff and Faculty
Resources and Training for
College is a time when many young adults experience their first mental health crisis. Creating campuses that are caring, connected, and healthy places to be is a top priority for Rhode Island.

Watch this brief video about the importance of restricting access to lethal means on college campuses and elsewhere in order to prevent suicide from the JED Foundation.
A social media partnership between the Rhode Island Department of Health and colleges in Rhode Island. Working with student Mental Health Ambassadors, the project promotes mental health and well-being on college campuses through student-created short videos shared on student and college social media accounts. Higher education professionals or students interested in learning about The Us in Campus can send us a message through the Contact Us form.
A guide for colleges on how to effectively and sensitively respond to a campus suicide.
This group of staff representatives from 11 colleges in Rhode Island meets twice a year to learn best practices for suicide prevention on campus and advise the Rhode Island Department of Health on trends happening on their campuses. If you are a staff member on a Rhode Island college campus that works in student life, student health, or student mental health and would like to learn more, send us a message through the Contact Us form.
Training is available for Higher Education Staff and Faculty
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention offers this suicide prevention training available for general audiences with specific modules for seniors, LGBTQ people, and workplace settings.
Now Matters Now, a skills-based site grounded in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and supported by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, offers free training for those with suicidal thoughts, substance or mental health problems or their family members and friends. It also offers courses for healthcare, crisis, peer support service and school counseling providers.
The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence offers a range of training broadly related to preventing and responding to domestic and gender-based violence, including such topics as Domestic Violence 101, cybersecurity and domestic violence, bystander intervention, and more.
A course that teaches you how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. It focuses on reaching out to provide initial help and support to someone who may be developing a mental health or substance use problem or experiencing a crisis.
A one-hour training focused on “gatekeepers”—people in a position to recognize a crisis and do something about it. A gatekeeper can be a friend, coworker, teacher, boss, or parent.