{"id":45094,"date":"2019-04-11T09:20:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T14:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=45094"},"modified":"2019-04-11T09:20:11","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T14:20:11","slug":"%ef%bb%bfeducating-minds-also-means-nurturing-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=45094","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffEducating minds also means nurturing them"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

E<\/strong>I love to share stories about students who through grit and determination have traversed difficult journeys and succeeded. They inspire me every day and remind me of my purpose: making a positive impact in the lives of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nmotivation and purpose, however, is also fueled by painful memories of students\nwho have died, some from sickness or accident, but others from mental health\nillnesses and substance abuse. The memory of all those students and their\nfamilies are forever in my heart and have profoundly shaped my perspective in\nunderstanding the importance of community awareness, understanding, compassion,\nand action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nmy career I have relied upon a number of colleagues who have worked with me to\nhelp individuals and the campus through struggles and tragedies \u2013 from individual\nprofessors and staff members, to crisis intervention teams, to campus police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndeath of any student is tragic, but for those who die as a result of mental\nillness the tragedy is compounded by the questions that remain with their\nfriends and loved ones: Was there something we could have done? What did we\nmiss? How could I have helped?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those\nquestions also haunt those of us who worked at the universities where the students\nstudied, and always at the center of our institutional hopes are our\nprofessional counselors \u2013 a caring and experienced group of faculty and staff\nwho quietly help so many members of our community gain the skills and knowledge\nto heal and to grow. They are truly gifted, kind, and remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\naddition to helping individuals, these professionals also educate and shape\npolicy so that our university grows stronger, enhances our outreach, and\nstrengthens the overall wellbeing of our campus community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently\nour Department of Psychology and the Kelly Center joined together to build\nawareness, improve the quality of health services, protect students, and\ndiscourage harmful behaviors across our campus through a partnership with the\nJED Foundation, created in 2000 by Donna and Phil Satow, who lost their\nyoungest son, Jed, to suicide in 1998. They desired to use their loss to help\ncommunities strengthen their knowledge and skills and, ultimately, save lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\nFHSU, we have been doing a lot of exemplary work in mental health promotion,\nbut core to who we are, we know that no matter how proficient, there is always\nroom for improvement. So the faculty and staff of the Psychology Department and\nthe Kelly Center set out to validate all of the good work FHSU has already done\nto provide mental health and substance abuse services to our students and to look\nfor ways to enhance and improve what we were doing. They accomplished this\nthrough JED Campus \u2013 an initiative of the Jed Foundation to guide schools\nthrough a collaborative process to create and implement a strategic plan to\npromote mental health, prevent suicide and limit substance use on college\ncampuses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto FHSU\u2019s Dr. Leo Herrman, an associate professor of psychology, the campus program\nframework incorporates the content of the \u201cComprehensive Approach to Mental\nHealth Promotion and Suicide Prevention on College and University Campuses.\u201d This\nis a collection of data-driven best-practicesdeveloped by JED and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. It allowed\nus to anticipate and evaluate our clinical and programming needs, examine how\nwe utilize both personnel and financial resources to address challenges,\ncoordinate efforts across campus, and measure our effectiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort\nHays State’s JED Campus Initiative was a four-year process led by Gina Smith,\ndirector of the Kelly Center, and Herrman. A campus-wide committee with diverse\nrepresentation from the administration, the student body, student affairs, residential\nlife and various academic colleges worked with JED Campus to do a comprehensive\nreview of the university\u2019s policies, practices and resources as they relate to\nour students\u2019 overall adjustment to college, mental health and general\nwellbeing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our\ncampus initiative resulting from their work focused on nine key areas. It\ncreated, implemented or modified institutional policies and practices to\nimprove the university\u2019s environment and enhance our mental health and student\nadjustment services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\ninstance, the committee looked for ways to identify risks and begin dealing\nwith them early. The health form that incoming students complete for the Campus\nHealth Center now includes questions about mental health and alcohol and drug\nhistories. Students who self-identify as having mild or moderate mental health\nissues get an email outlining services available on campus, and campus care\nproviders follow that up by helping students develop self-care plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also\nnow have a well-defined medical leave policy that can be applied consistently\nfor mental health as well as physical issues, and we are proactive about\nletting new and existing students \u2013 and their families \u2013 know about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ninitiative also addressed educating students on healthy lifestyle choices and\nincreasing their awareness of warning signs in their own behaviors and where to\nseek help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nproject was comprehensive and extensive, and we have a better and safer campus\nwith more supports and help for our students. According to Dr. Herrman,\nfeedback from JED was positive in regards to existing programming, but work\nwith them clearly enhanced what we were doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fort\nHays State was one of the first schools nationally to join the JED Campus\nInitiative and is still the only one in Kansas. FHSU is one of only 15 nationally\nto achieve Alumni Status. I am so proud of our people for caring so deeply\nabout our community and working even harder to create a safer campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every student matters. It is this ethic of care and this spirit of positive restlessness \u2013 always striving to improve \u2013 that makes Fort Hays State University so strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EI love to share stories about students who through grit and determination have traversed difficult journeys and succeeded. They inspire me every day and remind… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45095,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45094\/revisions\/45095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}