With the encouragement & support of President Pelton and receipt of a grant from the Hillman Family, Emerson initiated the process to become a recognized JED campus in December of 2016.
Emerson College has joined the JED Campus Program in support of student well-being and mental health. The program is designed to identify opportunities to enhance emotional health and substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts on campus in order to ensure that schools have the strongest possible mental health safety nets.
Emerson demonstrates a commitment to the emotional well-being of our students through this initiative. As a JED Campus school, we have started 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. The JED Campus Program provides schools with a framework for supporting student mental health, as well as assessment tools, feedback reports and ongoing technical assistance from the JED Campus team of clinicians. The JED Campus Program grants a membership seal to all schools that participate in the program in recognition of the school’s commitment to student mental health.
JED Campus is a nationwide initiative of The Jed Foundation designed to empower schools with a framework and customized support to promote the emotional well-being of students, reduce suicide and serious substance abuse and build communities where students can learn and thrive. JED’s Comprehensive Approach is drawn primarily from the overall strategic direction of the United States Air Force (USAF) Suicide Prevention Program, a population-based strategy to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors for suicide (Knox et al., 2003). The JED approach is also based on what is known about how to decrease risk factors and increase protective factors for mental health and suicide among adolescents, college students, and the general population; an understanding of the student mental health problems that campuses face; and existing recommended practices.
