Bailey Thompson | News Editor

Beginning on Nov. 7 and into mid-December, Tim Glascock — the project director for WOU CASA and Suicide Prevention — encouraged Western students to participate in the Healthy Minds Survey. Having received the three-year Garrett Lee Smith Campus Grant in Fall Term of 2017, Western sought to use this evaluation tool to better understand mental health and service utilization on campus.

“This gives our campus a better understanding of the health issues that need to be addressed on campus,” said Glascock. “This initial use of HMS was meant to provide a baseline on these topics.”

In the future, Glascock imagines that the data collected in this survey will be used to better serve the mental health needs of those in the Western community.

According to Glascock, specifically, there are four main areas that are focused on with the grant: “Increase gatekeeping behaviors,” or in other words, encourage bystanders to notice and reach out to someone struggling, “increase educational events that focus on mental health or life skills … increase marketing and campaigns that focus on addressing many of the topics that HMS addresses, and finally updating or proposing new policies or procedures related to suicide and mental health.”

With this grant in place, Glascock expressed that one of the most significant accomplishments that has resulted from it so far is “the implementation of a new website focused on suicide prevention and mental health promotion.” Students can explore the website wou.edu/mental-health and the variety of resources that it has to offer.

Another success that has come from this grant is the creation of a new campus organization.

“A new student club called Wellness Advocacy Group (WAG) formed at the beginning of this year and will focus on mental health promotion efforts,” said Glascock. Amongst these efforts, this group is in the process of organizing an Out of the Darkness walk in May.

An additional outcome of this grant is that 14 staff members on Western’s campus have been trained to conduct trainings on QPR, which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer.

“QPR is a bystander intervention training that teaches folks how to recognize someone in distress, how to reach out to them, and how to refer them to services,” said Glascock. “It is just like CPR — the more people who are trained to recognize someone in distress, the higher the chances of folks being recognized and utilizing services.”

Upon reflecting on these changes, Glascock also had a few words of practical advice for any individuals in Western’s community. A couple of the major things that he emphasized are that it is important for people to continue working on their own mental health and to continue talking about these issues so that they are normalized in our society.

“There is a difference between mental health and mental illness,” said Glascock. “Mental health is a generic term just like physical health; it can be good or bad, regardless of whether there is a mental illness present.  It is also worth mentioning that someone with a mental illness can be just as successful as someone who doesn’t.”

Finally, Glascock encouraged any students to seek help if they or someone they love needs it.

“Reach out, both if you suspect that someone is struggling, but also if you are struggling,” said Glascock. “The worst thing that can happen if you reach out to someone is that they may get mad, but at least they know you care about them.  Saving a life is more important than saving a relationship.”

If students are interested in learning more about the mental health resources available on campus, they can go to the new webpage or email Glascock at glascockt@wou.edu.

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu