QPR Training to be Implemented on Campus

By Taylor Hutchison

Editor’s Note: There are several resources that students may use if they feel the need to harm themselves including the following:

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK(8255)

The Counseling Center Crisis Hotline: (970-247-5245)

Axis Health Systems Crisis Hotline: (970-259-2162)

Faculty and staff at Fort Lewis College plan to implement a new suicide prevention resource in response to the high suicide rate in Durango.

QPR gatekeeper training, short for question, persuade, and refer, teaches trainees how to help someone who may be suicidal.

QPR is similar to CPR in that the process consists of recognition of a crisis, efforts to avert the crisis, and then referral to an appropriate resource, Dr. Megan Wrona, assistant professor of psychology, said.

“It’s designed to be similar to what you have with CPR training,” she said. “With CPR, nobody’s going to be trained to fix a heart problem completely, but we’re trained, in CPR, how to help in the moment and get the person to the help that they need. QPR has the same goals. As someone who’s not trained in therapy, we don’t expect people to be able to fix the problems, solve what’s going on.”

Rebecca Clausen, chair and associate professor of psychology, was inspired to bring QPR to FLC after she took the QPR gatekeeper training through 4-H.

“I did it as a parent, a community member, and I really got a lot out of it,” Clausen said.

The training was 90 minutes long and included role play where trainees had to act as if they were helping someone who may be suicidal. This role play was intended to get trainees comfortable asking someone if they are suicidal, she said.

Now, Clausen hopes to provide all faculty and staff with QPR gatekeeper training. After she learned that there was only one QPR instructor in the area, she reached out for support from other faculty and staff and received a grant from the provost, Jessie Peters.

With this grant, Clausen and others first plan to have at least 10 faculty and/or staff members become QPR instructors.

Kendra Gallegos-Riechel, the coordinator of student wellness, said that those behind the initiative are in search of a diverse group of instructors.

“We have them from all different departments,” she said.  “We’re in the process of selecting them right now, it was an application process.”

Riechel became an instructor herself, and trained her abnormal psychology students as a way to start the initiative.

“Right now, it’s in the developmental stages and we’re working on initially training a group of faculty and staff members who have committed to facilitating this program for people on campus,” Wrona said, “Once those facilitators are trained, then the facilitators will start doing trainings across campus, again with that long term goal of training all faculty and staff.”

They also hope to offer regular QPR gatekeeper training not only to those at FLC, but to anyone and everyone in the area.

“We want everybody on campus trained to provide more support for students and also provide more support for the community because we don't know where suicide is gonna crop up,” Wrona said.

After they have at least 10 QPR instructors, they plan to start training all faculty and staff, and those in the community, in the fall.

Clausen said that there is a tentative plan to start training at the faculty retreat, where all faculty members are together, at the end of August.

However, she wants to make sure to include staff members as well. So, part of that tentative plan is to offer training during fall semester for those not present at the faculty retreat, she said.

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