RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) – September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and as college students begin to go back to school, 77% report feelings of depression and anxiety.
Black Hills State University has a new partnership with Lost and Found, hoping to better the school’s mental health program for students. Lost and Found South Dakota is a suicide prevention organization that helps students find resources, networking, and access to education before a student might ever need the program.
This year the organization partnered with Black Hills State University in hopes of bettering the school’s mental health services.
“I think the really cool thing about our department or our university being able to work with Lost and Found is it just allows us to access a broader range of students,” says Rebecca Funk, the Director of Student Health and Counseling at Black Hills State University.
Prior to the program, the mental health services at BHSU had a primary focus on the individual because the COVID funding gap made resources scarcer. Lost and Found wants to fill that gap by catering the program to each student. They also want to pair students with a mentor, the student can trust.
“One of the key focuses that we’re doing on campus is helping support counseling, so we have a referral process that we kind of go through with the counselors here. So, they will refer students to our program, those students can get services based on their needs,” says on-campus program director, Cory Kennedy, the Senior Prevention Specialist for Lost and Found.
Lost and Found seeks to help students before they reach a breaking point. Seeing the program as a way to find a community on campus, pairing mentors and mentees together that will have things in common.
“Some of the services that we’ll provide is just resources, access to education but if they also would like to have a mentor, we have a peer mentor program. So, we train our mentors in mental health, education, and QPR, so question, persuasion, and refer which is the national suicide training,” Kennedy concludes.
This program was implemented because Black Hills State wanted to expand its mental health services, bringing in programs the university hadn’t seen before.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the national suicide hotline at 988.
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