Hold On Map

Main idea

The Hold On Map provides staff with a guideline for handling signs of suicide. It makes issues discussable and clearly indicates where students with suicidal thoughts and behaviours can be referred or who can be contacted in risk situations.

Outline

The policy around suicide prevention in AUAS needed to be made accessible. In this context, the Office of Student Services (Stuvo) condensed these lengthy policy texts by creating the Hold On Map for (supporting) staff.

This Hold On Map is a guide and a reference for lecturers, guidance staff and coordinators. It illustrates various phases of suicidal thoughts and behaviour and provides guidance on what to do in each phase. It provides answers to questions such as: What can help? How do I get the student to the right help? What are my obligations as a professional?

These subjects are adressed on the Hold On Map:

• signals
• making suicide discussable
• assessing acute risk
• interventions
• organisation to contact
• follow-up and support by Stuvo
• referral and information

Goals

The Hold On Map was developed to:

• help staff recognize signals that indicate that someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours;
• make suicide discussable;
• help staff in assessing acute risk;
• facilitate interventions;
• offer contact information of organisations;
• offer follow-up and support by Stuvo;
• and to inform staff.

Target group

Students with (mental) health problems

Obstacles targetted:

• Health problems

Students involvement

Within certain sessions where the Hold On Map is presented, students are encouraged to discuss and engage in debate.

Inspiration and evidence

• The working group that compiled the Hold On Map attended a course at VLESP (Flemish Expertise Center for Suicide Prevention).
• Discussions were held with other higher education institutions on how they handle suicide prevention.

Success criteria

• It is a quick sheet with strong content, featuring concrete tools, sentences, examples, and suggestions.
• The contact information of multiple people and organizations are provided.
• The Hold On Map is as short and complete as possible.
• It’s available in Dutch and in English.

Points of attention

• There are still many staff members who are not aware of the Hold On Map.
• The information on the Hold On Map needs to be updated.
• It is difficult for lecturers to decide where to draw their boundaries when it comes to avaliability and emotional labour.

 

Do you feel you can effectively provide the support that students require?

We strongly agree.

Would you recommend this to other institutions?

strongly agree

Evaluation

• After the development of the Hold On Map, students were questioned, revealing a need for a kind of Hold On Map for students themselves so they can help each other.
• During training sessions on ‘warm referrals’, the staff was questioned about the Hold On Map.

Communication

The Hold On Map is:

• available at the Office of Student Services and can be picked up by the academic counselors;
• online available on the central communication platform of AUAS;
• mentioned during trainings, sessions and team days;
• mentioned in newsletters;
• and distributed among support staff during an event.

 

 

Resources

• Internal training
• Staff

Extra information

• Flemish Expertise Center for Suicide Prevention
• Hold On Map (pdf)

Transferability

We think it is easily transferable to other contexts or groups.

The content of the Hold On Map is context-dependent. You have to take the challenges in mental health and the prevention and support in the local region into account while developing a tool like this.