Title: Risk, Resilience, and Re-imagining Support for Communities in Crisis
Presenter(s):
M Pease (they/them/theirs)
Room: Margaret Brent 2112
Session Block(s): Session I
Time: 10:25 a.m. to 11:25 a.m.
Duration: 60 minutes
Program Abstract:
In a changing world, how do we come together to build resilience and support our student communities in crisis? This session will discuss insights from research and community-based work toward reimagining crisis support in ways that center care, resilience, and meeting diverse student needs in a changing world. Attendees will discuss practical approaches for engaging resources, building sustainable support systems, and empowering students in crisis within higher education.
Program Description:
Crisis support, especially suicide risk assessment and management, are often some of the most intense parts of working within higher education, yet training models for this work often implicitly or explicitly prioritize personal and institutional liability reduction over true safety for students and communities. Moreover, many of the interventions for higher acuity cases of risk such as police dispatch and involuntary hospitalization have been subjects of historic controversy and tension in higher education, given they can place students in situations that revoke their autonomy and increase likelihood of traumatization. Indeed, Research indicates that involuntary hospitalization can be associated with higher risk of future suicide attempt and other negative downstream consequences that may exacerbate the mental health concerns that contributed to crisis in the first place, especially for LGBTQIA+ and communities experiencing intersectional marginalization. These considerations and the historic lack of alternative resources create complicated ethical dilemmas for our field. This program asks: how can we re-center our approach to "risk" and crisis support to focus not on our liability but on truly addressing student needs in ways that promote safety and healing with our clients and communities? Using research and community-based work as framing, this presentation discusses what it looks like to reimagine and tangibly create new models of support for students, acknowledging systemic factors that contribute to crisis in today’s changing landscape (e.g., discrimination and violence, economic instability). Drawing from liberatory, intersectional, and anti-oppressive perspectives, participants will be invited to discuss and engage in activities to co-create frameworks and practical strategies to support students reimagine crisis support in the field of higher education and beyond.