Alive! Mental Health Fair visits Siena Heights campus to raise suicide awareness

ADRIAN — It was estimated that more than 15% of the student body at Siena Heights University's Adrian campus actively participated in a mental health fair that came to campus last week.

Foot traffic was constant throughout both sessions Feb. 8 inside the McLaughlin University Center as students and staff made their way through the center for lunch and dinner, university officials reported.

SHU put on the event with with Alive! Mental Health Fair, a company based in Maryland that seeks to prevent suicides, especially those that occur on college campuses.

The fair also provided local resources and information about mental health. Lenawee Community Mental Health Authority; Family Medical Center; Catholic Charities; McCullough, Vargas and Associates; HillTop Counseling; and the Siena Heights University Counseling Center occupied booths at the event.

Alive! Mental Health Fair programming aims to teach college-age students about the warning signs of suicide through fun, innovative and informal activities. The fair also sought to identify any at-risk students who may have been reluctant to approach counseling staff and facilitate interventions.

Messages of hope and a secrets wall were some of the examples of how people could express themselves. Students were also able to win various prizes.

“Oftentimes, people get into a place where they are like, ‘Nobody understands me. I'm all by myself.’ And so, what we're hoping by this event, is that students get a chance to see, ‘Hey, I'm not the only person that's struggling with this or that,’” Chris Carter, director of diversity, equity and inclusion at Siena Heights, said. “And sometimes when you're holding onto things, you just need that outlet. And sometimes, just writing it down can be that outlet that gives that person that extra step of like, ‘Hey, I can do this. I can go a little bit further.’”

According to Carter, students walking through the university center were curious about the mental health fair.

“They enjoyed getting the chance to win prizes, and they enjoyed not only forming messages of hope and inspiration but also seeing what other students had to say,” he said.

Carter was one of the first staff members students approached when entering the university center and learning about the mental health fair. He directed students to begin with filling out messages of hope on the Alive! graffiti art table, which was a large canvas that featured the face of the university’s mascot, Halo the Husky.

From there, students could explore other aspects of the fair, including the Alive! Share a Secret wall, the Alive! Brain station, Alive! Fact or Fiction, a yoga/breathing seminar and an arts therapy table.

Therapy dog Hagrid was also part of the mental health fair and was available for anybody to pet and spend time with. Hagrid’s trainer, Margaret Hern, is a child trauma therapist who trains therapy dogs. Hern is an alumna of Siena Heights University.

Alive! Mental Health Fair was developed by the founders of 1-800-SUICIDE, the nation's first suicide prevention network, and IMALIVE.org, the world's first virtual crisis center. Since 2010, the Alive! team has been to more than 200 campuses across North America. Last week was Alive!’s first visit to Siena Heights University.

“We expect to be coming back, and I look forward to coming back,” said Reese Butler II, president and founder of Alive! Mental Health Fair.

The number of students who participated in both sessions of the health fair exceeded expectations, Butler said.

“It was amazing to hear the knowledge that these students, some of them freshmen, have today that even five years ago, would not be common knowledge (about mental health and suicide),” he said.

Butler ended up building a network of 150 crisis centers nationwide from the late 1990s to the early 2000s in an effort to bring the message of suicide awareness to all people. His journey began Sept. 18, 1998, when the nation’s first suicide telephone hotline went live.

His work in suicide prevention unfortunately began when his wife, Kristin Brooks Rossell, died by suicide, April 7, 1998.

“And she was, in my mind, at that point, the least likely person who would (commit suicide),” he said.

When she took her life, as a result of poorly treated postpartum depression which turned into postpartum psychosis, Butler said, he received an insurance check from her work — a death benefit. He looked to donate the insurance check to a suicide prevention organization that concentrated on postpartum depression.

When he wasn’t able to locate such an organization in the 1990s, that’s when Butler got the idea of starting the crisis hotline. His advocacy work drove him to Congress, where he was able to get $9 million appropriated to build the crisis network and certify all of the crisis centers across the country.

After beginning in California, Butler said, he realized quickly that if the crisis networks were to have any kind of a national impact, the main hub would need to located near or in Washington, D.C. So the organization moved to Washington and partnered with national mental health organizations that 20-25 years ago were not addressing suicide, he said.

He soon found the benefits of bringing the message of suicide awareness to college campuses. It was an endeavor of his, Butler said, to support younger adults so that they wouldn’t fall through the cracks of the health system.

One of the first line items college campuses cut when their funding and budgets go down is counseling services, he said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many college campuses did away with their entire counseling department and contracted with telehealth services, which has its advantages, too, Butler continued. But not everything is repaired with counseling. Art therapy, music therapy and yoga therapy are examples of stimulation that can help those who are suicidal back on their feet. Examples of those services were provided at last week’s mental health fair.

There’s been progress in addressing mental health and suicide services in the United States over the span of 25 years, Butler acknowledged, but there is still plenty more to be done.

“You don’t want to take the stigma away before you have a place to land,” he said. “Because that's a dangerous place to be, where somebody knows they need help, is willing to reach out for help but it isn't there. That’s when hopelessness kicks in. And that's one of the biggest warning risk factors for people who are suicidal is that hopelessness. If you know that things may get better tomorrow, there’s a reason to stay alive.”

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Alive! Mental Health Fair visits campus of Siena Heights University