Defiance College receives grants totaling $139,068
to promote campus mental health and wellness

January 12, 2017

 

DEFIANCE, Ohio - Defiance College has received $139,068 in multiple grants in recent months to promote the mental health, safety, and well-being of the campus community. These funds will build upon existing progress in areas of sexual violence prevention, suicide prevention, and improving campus mental health and wellness.

"These grants allow us to take better care of individuals who have experienced all types of victimization and mental health issues and will help reduce the stigma for what it means to get help," said Lynn Braun, Director of Counseling and Accessibility Services for Defiance College. "It is allowing us to do more for the campus community than we ever would have been able to do without these resources."

The College received the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant in the amount of $100,168 from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office in October. The dollars will provide funding for sexual violence prevention and response resources.

The grant will also be used for technology to support Counseling Center staff and Title IX investigators working remotely to aid students, victims’ emergency funds, conferences and training for staff, and personnel reimbursement for stabilization work with primary, secondary, and relational crime victims.

The Changing Campus Culture grant from the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) was awarded to Defiance College earlier this year in the amount of $7,500. It will provide victims’ advocate training for Defiance College staff as well as sexual violence prevention promotional materials and programming.

An additional $2,400 grant from ODHE allowed Counseling Center staff to be trained to provide Bringing in the Bystander, a prevention and response training program. This program helps the campus community to recognize risky situations and identify ways to intervene as well as know how to provide resources and assistance in the aftermath of sexual violence.

Another ODHE grant in the amount of $15,000 was awarded in September. The Transforming Campus Climate grant provides funding for the Student Health 101 online health and wellness magazine, online sexual violence awareness and protection training for incoming students, and materials to start a Clothesline Project which will coincide with the Northwest Ohio Clothesline Project coming to campus in April. The project allows survivors to create t-shirts about their victimization or survival.

The Collaborative Program Development grant from the Ohio Program for Campus Safety and Mental Health (OPCSMH) was awarded in October in the amount of $4,000 to provide funds for the Alive! Mental Health Fair and related promotional materials. The fair will feature interactive stations that promote greater understanding of mental health issues and a suicide prevention training course.

The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation, along with OPCSMH, awarded a $10,000 Campus Mental Health grant in October. Defiance College was one of ten campuses receiving this grant. Funds aim to provide a four-year membership to The JED Foundation Campus Program, which offers assistance in development of an individualized campus plan for mental health promotion, substance abuse, and suicide prevention efforts; two Healthy Minds surveys to gauge campus climate around mental health issues both pre- and post-participation; on-campus technical assistance from both JED and OPCSMH; and involvement in a statewide learning collaborative with nine other participating institutions.

"Given the strong link between sexual violence, mental health, and well issues and student retention, these grant opportunities will help to ensure that we're creating a network of education, prevention, identification, and referral that will help improve the ability of our students to be academically successful and persist to graduation," Braun said.

Defiance College, chartered in 1850, is an independent, liberal arts institution in Northwest Ohio offering more than 40 undergraduate programs of study as well as graduate programs in education and business. Defiance College has received national recognition for its educational experience of service and engagement. The college website is www.defiance.edu.