West Virginia University now offers an online training program for students, faculty and staff to help those who experience psychological distress or thoughts of suicide.

The online program called “Kognito” teaches its participants how to identify the stressors that negatively affect them and how to approach those at-risk and make referrals to the appropriate resources. It also encourages those in distress to speak up and seek help.

“National surveys show that approximately 80 percent of students who die by suicide had not sought help from their campus counseling center,” said Cathy Yura, assistant vice president for Student Life. “Recognizing and responding to students in crisis is vital to the success of our preventative approach to suicide on campus.”

“Kognito” is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Campus Suicide Prevention Grant and is a component of WELLWVU’s helpWELL, a program in place to help identify and support students at-risk for suicide and other related mental health concerns.

The highly interactive, 45-minute course is used at more than 350 campuses nationwide. “Kognito” uses role-play conversations in which participants attain hands-on practice managing challenging conversations surrounding mental health.

“Suicide is a leading cause of death for the college population, and WVU is committed to providing assistance to our students with the philosophy that ‘even one death by suicide is one death too many,’” Yura said. “We want to continue to make students our number one priority and support this important initiative.”

LGBTQ and Veteran training modules are available through “Kognito,” which will help gain an understanding of challenges and considerations unique to those student populations.

To access the free, online training, go to https://kognitocampus.com/login and select “create an account.” Staff and faculty will use the enrollment key “wvu664” and students will use “wvu833”.

For more information, contact T. Anne Hawkins TAHawkins@mail.wvu.edu or 304-293-4431.

-WVU-

ta/08/22/14

CONTACT: T. Anne Hawkins, WELLWVU
304.293.4431, TAHawkins@mail.wvu.edu

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