As a way to promote suicide prevention, Wichita State University is expanding the #WeSupportU Suspenders4Hope campaign throughout the country in hopes of creating positive change in communities regarding mental health and suicide prevention.
In 2015, Wichita State started the #Suspenders4Hope mental health awareness campaign, after receiving a SAMHSA Campus Suicide Prevention grant. In 2018, the #WeSupport Preventing Suicide Training was developed as a way to sustain the grant efforts, and just recently, the #WeSupportU Mental Wellness in the Classroom cards have been released to help instructors tend to their students' mental health needs.
Now the program is available to others through the launch of a new website and on-demand version of the training.
The program was inspired by a beloved WSU therapist who was well known around campus as Dr. Suspenders, says Dr. Jessica Provines, assistant vice president of Wellness at Wichita State and a two-time therapist suicide loss survivor. Provines' team decided to play off that theme.
