Tailored QPR trainings at California State University, Stanislaus

With the tremendous effect that suicide can have on the community and with the growing number of young adults impacted by suicide, it is imperative that university campuses across the nation aim at educating their university constituents about suicide prevention. It is important that students, staff, faculty, and administrators receive and rehearse relevant information about suicide prevention. Evidence-based programs such as Question, Persuade and Refer (QPR) aim at educating and preventing deaths by suicide. Through the use of QPR on college campuses individuals can learn the basic skills and concepts to intervene and prevent the growing number of suicides among college-aged students. This project reveals the effort required to design and conduct QPR trainings on the California State University, Stanislaus campus. The development of such trainings involved unique experiences by the participants and the facilitators. There were four trainings with over 65 total participants. The trainings were offered to the campus community, including students, university staff, faculty and administrators. The response from the participants’ experiences makes it clear that trainings like QPR are important on the university campus and should continue to be offered in an effort to diminish stigma and decrease suicide fatalities.