JED Campus

JED Campus is a nationwide initiative of The Jed Foundation designed to empower schools with a framework and customized support to enhance student well-being and substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts. By becoming a member of JED Campus, a school demonstrates its commitment to the emotional well-being of its students. JED Campus schools embark on a multi-year strategic collaboration that not only assesses and enhances the work that is already being done, but helps create positive, lasting, systemic change in the campus community. 

Participation in JED Campus involves schools: Collaborating with clinicians and staff from the JED Campus team over a period of four years to identify opportunities to enhance emotional health and substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts on campus in order to ensure that schools have stronger mental health safety nets. 

• Establishing an interdisciplinary, campus-wide team that includes senior leadership (or using one that is already in place) to assess, support and implement improvements with assistance from the JED Campus team. 
• Taking an in-depth, confidential assessment evaluating a school’s current mental health promotion, substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts. JED Campus clinicians provide schools with a comprehensive feedback report identifying successes and opportunities for enhancements. 
• Meeting on campus with a JED Campus clinician to discuss the feedback report, generate goals for improvement and develop a strategic (or action) plan that will serve as a roadmap to implement enhancements over the course of their work in the program. Towards the end of the program, a JED Campus clinician will again meet with the interdisciplinary team, either virtually or in person, to review progress and set future goals for growth and sustainability. 
• Ongoing collaboration with a dedicated Campus Advisor who will provide continued support and resources to help each school achieve its goals. 
• Engaging with the JED Campus Learning Community – a network of JED Campus schools that share learnings and experiences as well as presentations/discussions on specific topics of interest that emerge from JED’s work with JED Campus schools. 
• Having access to an in-depth, on-line resource library. 
• Receiving the JED Campus membership seal to signify their commitment to student well-being. 

JED Campus feedback contains suggestions—not mandates—for colleges and universities to consider in order to enhance their policy and programming efforts. The feedback report assesses campus resources in relation to JED’s Model for Comprehensive Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention for Colleges and Universities, a consolidation of factors known to help in promoting emotional well-being, preventing suicide, and limiting substance use developed by The Jed Foundation and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. The program combines the content of the Comprehensive Model with expert recommendations regarding factors related to preventing substance abuse in young adults. Each school’s self-assessment responses are reviewed relative to seven strategic imperatives with feedback provided within the following domains: 

• Developing life skills 
• Promoting connectedness 
• Identifying students at risk 
• Increasing help-seeking behavior 
• Providing mental health, substance and crisis services 
• Following crisis management procedures 
• Restricting access to potentially lethal means 

Over the course of four years, advisors from the JED Campus team will collaborate with schools to identify resources, programs, policies, etc. to fill in identified gaps in order to ensure that schools have the tools and knowledge to implement strong mental health safety nets. 

The JED Campus program is based upon The Comprehensive Approach to Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention on College and University Campuses, which was developed JED and SPRC and reviewed by multiple experts in mental health and higher education and is considered a consensus best practice by the AFSP/SPRC best practice registry (for more information: https://www.jedfoundation.org/what-we-do/). This model is based on the Air Force suicide prevention program, which has been shown to decrease rates of suicide, homicide and accidental deaths. JED Campus combines the content of the Comprehensive Model with expert recommendations regarding factors related to promoting well-being and limiting substance abuse in young adults. 

While many schools have adopted elements of the JED Campus approach and a number have based their mental health support systems upon it, it is only partially implemented at a significant number of colleges. Most schools provide direct counseling services, yet, often there is not a holistic, campus-wide approach to mental health. All schools can also benefit from the process of completing the JED Campus self-assessment, the feedback provided in their reports and the ability to learn and network with other JED Campus schools through the learning community. Participation in the program provides all schools the opportunity to explore new ideas for enhancing the great work in progress and find innovative ways to support the emotional well-being of their students.  We believe that the implementation of a campus-wide approach to mental health promotion will lead to safer, healthier students and campuses, and possibly greater student retention.