In an effort to support students’ mental health and combat substance abuse and suicide, the Texas A&M University System has partnered with the Jed Foundation across its 11 universities. The partnership is a multiyear collaboration in which the foundation offers schools tools and feedback to improve students’ mental health.
The JED Campus program involves the creation of a team to assess on-campus resources and programs for mental health and substance misuse, including a confidential self-assessment survey on the promotion of such resources and efforts.
Following the assessment, experts from the Jed Foundation provide the university with a feedback report that analyzes strengths and opportunities for improvement in promoting mental health and fighting substance abuse and suicide. The foundation collaborates with each campus over four years to implement such suggestions.
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“About 75% of our students have indicated that they have great challenges in dealing with mental health as they go through college and trying to achieve the dream they have of obtaining a degree or moving on,” Dr. James Hallmark, vice chancellor for academic affairs at The A&M System, said in a statement. “We are interested in our students’ success and think this partnership will help us better help them with their top three concerns which are anxiety, personal stress and depression.”
The JED Campus program already has been undertaken and completed at A&M-Commerce. The Texas A&M System features over 157,000 students with more than 21 million educational contacts.
“The college years are the age when many mental health issues first manifest, and it can be a time of significant stress and pressure,” John MacPhee, Chief Executive Officer of JED, said. “JED Campus helps schools by working with them to evaluate what their college or university is doing to support student emotional health and well-being and find practical ways to augment these efforts in a comprehensive way. We believe that the implementation of a campus-wide approach to mental health will lead to safer, healthier communities and likely greater student retention.”