Fisher Transitions to JED Alumni Campus – What’s Next?

For the past four years, St. John Fisher University has partnered with JED, a not-for-profit initiative that partners with high schools and higher education institutions to improve mental health and substance use awareness and to promote suicide prevention efforts on campuses. As the University transitions to a JED Alumni campus, the Fisher community may wonder what that means for mental health resources at Fisher.

Fisher became a JED campus in 2019, and while campuses usually enroll for a four-year cycle with the organization, the impact of the COVID pandemic allowed the University to receive an additional year of the partnership.

“Through this partnership, we began to embark on an internal review of current campus practices and resources related to mental health, substance use, and suicide prevention,” said Rebecca Kieffer, director of the Health and Wellness Center.

Kieffer said that Fisher’s partnership with JED has strengthened critical areas of campus that support the well-being of students. More than 500 students, faculty, and staff completed training in the QPR (Question, Persuade, Response) technique, a method used for suicide awareness and prevention, and a trauma, illness, grief (TIG) campus trauma response team was developed while additional counseling resources were added in the Health and Wellness Center.

While Fisher will no longer be a JED campus in name, it will continue to remain so in practice.

“We will remain a JED Alumni Campus to signify that we have completed the four years of the partnership,” said Kieffer.  “I can assure the campus community that our efforts toward mental health awareness, substance use awareness, and suicide prevention will not end.”

The Health and Wellness Center now has online forms for counseling and medical requests available through the University’s patient portal. As of this fall, the addition of the Lifeline for Suicide and Crisis response number, 988, has been added to all new students’ IDs. Returning students can request a new student ID with the 988 information at the Office of Safety and Security.

In an effort to evaluate JED’s collective impact on the campus and provide information about the current student population, the Health and Wellness Center will be launching a Healthy Minds Survey on Monday, Oct. 28. The survey will bookend Fisher’s time as a JED campus and provide comparison data from its initial launch in February 2021.

“Ending our official time with JED will not impact student resources in any way,” Kieffer said. “We will continue to retain our current staff for medical and counseling services.  It is always our goal to serve students as quickly as we can.”

Students can reach out to Kieffer with any questions about mental health resources on campus at rkieffer@sjf.edu. The Health and Wellness Center is available Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Additionally, the Lifeline for Suicide and Crisis response can be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week through both calling and/or texting 988.

This article was written by Brooke Eastman, a senior media and communication major. Eastman currently serves as a Public Relations Writing Intern with the Marketing and Communications department at Fisher for the fall 2024 semester.