Making Strides in Student Health Programs

Ensuring that the best mental health and behavioral services are available to students is not only a priority at Endicott College—it’s the mission of the College’s Counseling Center. By constantly evolving established programs such as I See, I Speak, I Pledge and implementing new initiatives such as The Safe Zone Project, the Center is always on the lookout for ways to support students.

JED Campus Offers Added Resources to Enhance Mental Health Programs

Thanks to Matt Bowman’s generous philanthropic commitment to Endicott in support of the The Jed Foundation (JED), the College partnered with JED Campus, a nationwide initiative designed to empower schools with a framework and customized support to enhance student mental health, suicide, and substance use/misuse prevention efforts. Bowman is the grandfather of an Endicott student and identified JED as an important organization that would benefit all students on campus.

By entering into a four-year strategic collaboration with JED Campus, clinicians and staff from the JED Campus team will identify opportunities to improve mental health efforts at Endicott and create positive, lasting, systematic chance in the campus community. Endicott is now one of 14 colleges in Massachusetts who have partnered with JED Campus.

Assistant Director of the Counseling Center at Endicott, Lindsey Shrayer, shares, “The JED Foundation is a pioneer when it comes to issues in mental health and suicide prevention, specifically among college students. This partnership will encourage the College to always strive to be better by strengthening our programs and closely examining the issues that are prevalent on Endicott’s campus. The tools and resources that we now have through this partnership will allow us to take a deep dive into our own population versus on a broader, national scale.”

The first task of the JED Campus partnership will be establishing an interdisciplinary, campus-wide team that will include senior leadership. In the fall, a survey will be sent out to all students to do an assessment of not only mental health, but also upstander and bystander behaviors, and diversity and inclusion. That data will allow JED Campus to share a customized plan on how Endicott can improve upon current programs and initiatives.

Safe Zone Project Trainings Continue to Grow

Since rolling out the campus-wide diversity and inclusion initiative The Safe Zone Project to the Endicott community last spring, a total of 166 faculty and staff, and 128 students have been Safe Zone trained—allowing trainees to learn about LGBTQ+ identities, gender, and sexuality.

As for plans for the future? Endicott Counselor, Brian Mannion, says that there are plans to evolve Safe Zone by introducing Safe Zone 2.0 to the College, which would allow those who are already Safe Zone trained to continue conversations around these topics in an open forum versus a structured educational training.

Mannion shares, “We have seen the Safe Zone trainings paying off. People are having more conversations about LGBTQ+, and The Alliance Club at Endicott has seen a significant increase in the number of students attending meetings. Those who have been trained are enthusiastic and are taking the overall goal of raising awareness and creating a more inclusive campus seriously.”

To learn more about the JED Campus partnership or Safe Zone, contact the Endicott College Counseling Center.