The Cosumnes River College Student Health and Wellness Center observed Suicide Prevention Month by sharing resources and kicking off a month-long scavenger hunt to help students learn more about suicide prevention.
The month-long scavenger hunt includes rubber ducks that have information attached to the bottom of them with resources for students about suicide prevention and mental health issues.
Akaysia Hill, a mental health advocate for CRC, said she placed the ducks around campus in the quad, cafeteria, library, college center lounge and the welcome center. Students who find the ducks can exchange them in the health center for a journal and a pen or be entered into a raffle for a $10 cafeteria dining voucher.
“We just want to let students know that we’re here and it doesn’t always have to be related to therapy,” Hill said. “You can find a duck on campus and learn more about how to get support.”
Hill said Jan’ee Miskell, a mental health advocate for Sacramento City College, was the one who came up with the rubber duck scavenger hunt and it’s now something that is occurring across all of the Los Rios district campuses.
The Health and Wellness Center staff hosted a tablingevent on Sept. 10 in the quad that provided facts, shared statistics, listed the common warning signs and shared resources for support on and off campus that pertained to suicide.
Sept. 10 is the day that is recognized as World Suicide Prevention Day, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health.
Gilbert Gacilan, the campus mental health clinician supervisor, said he hopes the tabling event busts some of the myths students might believe about suicide.
“We don’t want to assume something and then risk losing out on another person’s life,” Gacilan said. “So, if we can get ourselves educated and be able to talk about suicide, you know just like we talk about everything else, just not being afraid of it is most important.”
Hill said that she hopes the tabling event helps anyone that has been affected by suicide or suicidal ideation.
“We truly care and we want to be a resource that’s available to provide support and more importantly, they’re not alone,” Hill said.
Campus Mental Health Clinician Colby Arguelles has worked at CRC for seven years and has trained students and faculty on the QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) suicide prevention model.
Arguelles said she’s happy to see the campus sharing resources at the tabling event.
“Having Akaysia and Gilbert here now and just making all of this happen, it’s very cool,” Arguelles said.
Hill said she wants the conversation regarding suicide to be more normalized.
“We are seeing, given the times that we’re in, an increase in suicide for a lot of different reasons,” Hill said. “We just want to let people know that we’re here to offset some of the things they might be going through.”