All for
NarWELL
GLS SAMHSA Grant
Background & Data
What is the All for NarWELL Initiative, and how did it come to be?
Progress Report
How far has the initiative come, and what results are we seeing?
Sustainability Plan
How can we continue to support students as the grant comes to an end?
Background & Data 01
Background Data
From NCHA 2023 Spring Data for The New School n = 1491
Stress
78.9% of students reported to having a medium to high levels of stress overall
Community
Only around ⅓ of students reported to agreeing or strongly agreeing that TNS is a campus where individuals look out for each other
Belongingness
Only 31.6% of students reported that they agree or strongly agree that: I feel that students’ health and well-being is a priority at my college/university
Distress
80.2% of the students reported having moderate to serious psychological distress
Of BIPOC Students
Reporting moderate to severe distress
BIPOC students
Reported they had some sort of food insecurity problem in the past year
BIPOC students
Reported they had a problem or challenge in relation to discrimination
Of Trans Students
Scored positively on the loneliness scale
Reported they had intentionally harmed themselves within the past year
Had a positive suicidal screening LGBQ students
Of Trans Students
The New School has been awarded the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to help prevent suicide and raise awareness at The New Schol.
This 3-year, $306,000 grant will help provide consistent mental health and suicide screening, training, and programming. The goal is to have a cohort of students, faculty, and staff trained specifically to recognize signs related to mental health issues and empowered to reach out to help others to strengthen mental health services and suicide prevention programming at The New School.
GLS SAMHSA Grant
All for NarWELL
We’ve created the All for NarWELL Initiative for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention as a result of the GLS
SAMHSA Grant. The All for NarWELL Initiative is a collaborative, empirical, and unified approach to improving student mental health and wellness across The New School’s campus. This initiative includes evidence-based training, mental health screenings, wellness programs, and educational campaigns. Each component is designed for a diverse group of students, including those most at-risk.
Grant Goals
Increase campus infrastructure and collaboration with community behavioral healthcare providers to increase coordination of mental health and substance abuse services to students 01
Train college students, faculty, and staff to respond effectively to students at-risk for or experiencing mental health and/or substance use crisis
Increase outreach and early intervention efforts to prevent mental health crisis and suicidality and to increase help-seeking behavior, particularly for students in special populations (e.g. international students, LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC students, first generation, economically disadvantaged, etc.)
04
Increase the number of voluntary mental health and substance use disorder screenings and assessments offered to students
Improve university's ability to identify students at risk for suicide, substance abuse, and other mental health crisis by examining and using student health assessment measures and data for quality improvement of programs and services. 05
Progress Report 02
Psychological First Aid (PFA)
PFA training is a 3-hour training, developed by the Red Cross and WHO for humanitarian contexts. Center for Global Mental Health has adapted the training to serve higher education, local community-based organizations and other contexts. It is available both online and in-person.
As of Jan 2025, 223 individuals at The New School are trained in PFA
C-SSRS
The Columbia Protocol, also known as the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), supports suicide risk screening through a series of simple, plain-language questions that anyone can ask. The answers help users identify whether someone is at risk for suicide, determine the severity and immediacy of that risk, and gauge the level of support that the person needs.
All for NarWELL trains individuals on how to utilize this tool, specifically the table created by the Columbia Lighthouse Project, which has been endorsed by SAMHSA, WHO, and many other organizations.
As of Sep 2024, 341 individuals at the New SChool are trained in how to utilize C-SSRS.
Suicide Intervention Trainings
Suicide intervention trainings such as C-SSRS (Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale), QPR Training, SafeTALK Training, and through online platforms such as Kognito and Mindwise SOS has been provided through the initiative.
As of Jan 2025, 556 individuals at The New School are trained in a suicide intervention training.
Other Trainings Kognito
An online, interactive and self-paced training that takes around 45 minutes to complete per module. For students, there are two modules available (At-Risk Mental Health for Students; Alcohol & Other Drugs), and for faculty and staff, there is one module available (At-Risk Mental Health for Faculty & Staff).
SafeTALK
LivingWorks safeTALK is a four-hour training that equips people to be more alert to someone thinking of suicide and better able to connect them with further help. Using a simple yet effective model, LivingWorks safeTALK empowers everyone to make a difference. With over 120,000 people attending each year, it’s the world’s fastest-growing suicide prevention skills training course. TNS has a SafeTALK trainer on campus.
MindWise SOS for Higher Education
Similar to Kognito, MindWise provides an online, self-paced training that takes around 30 minutes to complete. This training bases itself on the ACT framework, which is an evidence based strategy for suicide intervention. This program will be taking place of Kognito, as Kognito is expected to go on a company-wide sundown.
“…the most helpful part was running the scenarios we face with one another (acting it out) and we ran out of time! If we do this again (and we definitely should because it was awesome) we need to have it be longer OR allocate much more time to acting out scenarios that our technicians face every day…”
“Informative, and made the topic (of helping others) digestible using different techniques…”
“This training is important, everyone in the community should do it, teaching skills on how to identify stress and the role you play in de-escalating the situation. If faculty learned these skills it could change the way they initially react in the situations that end up causing stress for students (language etc). “
Outreach Initiatives
The All for NarWELL instagram was created to directly communicate with TNS community, provide mental health awareness messages, and to provide easily accessible resources
Togetherall
Togetherall is an online, confidential, anonymous peer-to-peer platform that provides mental health support 24/7. Togetherall is a community for individuals to freely talk about their mental health concerns, stressors, and anything on their mind without judgment. Togetherall has “wall guides” who are licensed clinicians that can intervene when it looks like an individual is at high risk. The platform also provides internal screening and self-help modules.
Togetherall also provides a Peer Training Program, in which 2 students are already trained in, and 8 students will be trained as a Peer Helper in the upcoming academic year.
Awareness Raising
Simple awareness raising events, such as tabling with quick activities alongside easily accessible resource materials
Collaboration with Other Offices
Collaborating with other offices to carry out specific trainings and workshops usually have the best output.
All for NarWELL has collaborated with various student organizations and administrative offices on campus, such as: the Making Center, Campus Security, Dorm RAs, First Year Fellows at Eugene Lang, Orientation, Student Success, and the Psychology Club at The New School.
Making Center x Mindfulness
Dec 2023 Mar 2024
Initial Meeting, Learning about Making Center
PFA Training for Staff, Feedback Surveys
Going Forward Aug 2024
Summer Mindfulness Workshops, QPR Training
Implementing sustainable plan to continue efforts
Student Health Services
Individual & Group Counseling
Psychiatric Services
Safran Center Services
Target Practices
Target Practices include Individual & Group Counseling and Psychiatric Services from Student Health Services and the Safran Center. Part of the grant is also to promote these services and raise awareness for students. Additionally, the grant allowed us to purchase MindWise Innovations Anonymous Screening platform for TNS individuals to utilize, to increase early screening and intervention efforts
Sustainability Plan 03
Mental Health Commission of Canada. (2021). Toolkit for e-mental health implementation. https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/resource/toolkit-for-e-mental-health-implementation/
Stepped
Model of Care 2.0 for TNS
Therapy, Psychiatric Services
Individual-specific Counseling, Psychiatric services
Non-therapy Expert Support
PM+ Sessions, SH+ Sessions, advanced Therapy Groups
Peer-led Psychosocial Support
Mindfulness Counseling, Social Support Groups, Peer Trainers on Togetherall
Interactive, Online Materials
Togetherall, MindWise SOS for HigherEd, Quick self-help videos
Easy-to-Access Self-Help Materials
Resource Toolkits, Posters, Instagram Posts, Brochures
Proposed Training Model
Selected Few
Peer-Experts
To become peer-support and helpers– such as Training of Trainers, PM+ Helpers, Togetherall Peer Helper, etc.
Suicide Intervention
QPR, SafeTALK
Specific suicide intervention trainings, such as QPR and SafeTAK, to follow after PFA Trainings
Target Groups
Psychological First Aid, Custom Trainings
Custom-tailored de-escalation trainings, PFA trainings for specific groups, such as the Making Center, RAs, etc.
General Campus Population
Kognito & MindWise Online Training
After this year, MindWise will take place on Kognito on simple, online, interactive, evidence-based psychosocial education
Recommended Programs for Continuation
Togetherall
One of the most cost-effective platforms we had success with through this grant
MindWise Screening & Training
While usage is low at the moment, it is important that screening materials are readily accessible. Additionally, for the training, we had great feedback from those who took the training.
Psychological First Aid
Trainings that we had the best success with. This is the foundational training that provides a general groundwork for higher level trainings.
What do we need support with
Outreach
As we develop these programs, we have been struggling with outreach and advertisement. Institutional support for wider outreach is needed
Funding
After the grant comes to an end, we need funding to continue to provide these services. Support in finding funding or funding from university level is needed
Implementation
Throughout our initiative, we have learned that when the program is implemented into existing systems, we get the best participation and outcome. Institutional support in implementing these programs would be necessary for the program to sustain.
AWARENESS
● Simple awareness raising events, such as tabling with quick activities alongside easily accessible resource materials
● Social Media Outreach via Instagram
● Collaborative Events with offices such as Residential Education, Making Center, Student Health Services, and more!
● Utilizing peer-to-peer platforms such as
Togetherall
At least 3,000 individuals has engaged in an All for NarWELL event, exposed to the mental health awareness messages, and or participated in a collaboration event as of Jan 2025
RESEARCH
Stephan D. Weiss Student Mental Health Award
Problem Management Plus (PM+) in Higher Education Students: Addressing Mental Health Gaps
COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
Mental Health Matters
