Counseling Services launches partnership with national suicide prevention program

ISSUED: 1 October 2024
MEDIA CONTACT: Hans Fogle

SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV - Shepherd University will be the first college or university in West Virginia to adopt Sources of Strength, a peer-led suicide prevention program that has been successful in primary and secondary school settings.

Shepherd University's Counseling Services wanted to establish a partnership with the national, evidence-based suicide prevention program after counselor Karen Martin shared her experience.

Martin, who came to Shepherd in 2023, worked as a co-facilitator with Sources of Strength when she was a social worker at Martinsburg High School, West Virginia.

Sources of Strength is a peer-led program that facilitates suicide prevention training in secondary and primary school settings; Shepherd will be one of the first universities in the country to implement a Sources of Strength program plan.

After seeing the positive impact Sources of Strength had on her students at Martinsburg, Martin wanted to see a suicide prevention program established on Shepherd's campus.

Fortunately for Martin, Lee O'Neill, founder of the Brian O'Neill Jr. Foundation- an organization committed to supporting evidence-based suicide prevention programs in the Eastern Panhandle - had her own personal goals of introducing Sources of Strength to the University.

O'Neill and Martin collaborated while Martin worked at Martinsburg High School, with O'Neill's foundation supporting the Sources of Strength program there. Now, at Shepherd, the Brian O'Neill Jr. Foundation is financing the University's program site.

The Sources of Strength program will be different at Shepherd because it is a university, but the program will still be focused on the students.

"Everything that we will do within Sources of Strengths is peer-led," explained Martin. "The students will be coming up with the ideas. The students will be the ones who are facilitating the activities and outreach. It offers up an opportunity of leadership for our students."

The plan will consist of students, faculty, and staff, serving as peer or professional leaders selected through a nomination process. Nomination letters were emailed to Shepherd employees and students on September 23, with upwards of 40 nominations being submitted.

Shepherd employees and students who accept these nominations will participate in an October 12 peer leader training from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. This nomination and training process will occur annually.

The trained peer leaders will meet twice a month, with student leaders planning suicide-prevention activities and events - referred to as campaigns - and the Shepherd faculty and staff serving as professional advisors.

(standing, l. to r.) Karen Martin, counselor, Wendy Baracka, director of counseling services; (seated, l. to r.) counselors Jami Cross and Amanda Shank

The campus response to the new program has already been positively overwhelming, according to Wendy Baracka, director of Shepherd's Counseling Services.

"I have a stack of nomination forms," said Baracka. "It gives us chills to recognize that every day, since these [nomination] letters have gone out, people are saying 'I want to be a part of this.' It's like what they have been waiting for."

Martin is especially looking forward to seeing Sources of Strength operate on a collegiate level, as the peer leaders will have more time and more responsibilities when coordinating campaigns. Additionally, the program will work in conjunction with the various mental health student organizations on campus including Rams Careand Morgan's Message.

With mental health challenges among traditional college-age students on the rise over the last several decades, Baracka believes this new program has arrived at a crucial time for the campus community.

"The pandemic magnified [those mental health challenges] and exacerbated it with the isolation," said Baracka. "But we have also seen some trends in lower stigma around mental health among younger generations. We are engaging more in peer initiatives because what research shows is that peers and bystanders have such an incredibly influential impact on one another, so peer-led initiatives are increasing the likelihood that students are getting the help that they need."

This milestone is also personal for Martin, having lost a family friend, who was a student-athlete, to suicide in 2023.

"I felt very motivated to bring this to campus," she said. "This [suicide prevention programming] is something I am going to continue to push and put as much education out as I can in his honor."

The Counseling Services team is ready to see the Sources of Strength program take off at Shepherd, and for Baracka, the timing could not have been better.

"We know how strained our community resources are," she explained. "There are waitlists to see therapists and psychiatrists. So, Karen [Martin] coming in, wanting to bring in this program, the stars aligning, having Lee O'Neill as a community partner - it was the right time, the right place, the right leaders."

After the October 12 training, Shepherd students will begin planning Sources of Strength campaigns for the campus community. These campaigns will be open to the public, and community members are encouraged to participate and can even become professional leaders within the program.

For more information about Shepherd University's Sources of Strength program, email Karen Martin at [email protected].

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