Certificate Program for Faculty

There has been an increase in students experiencing mental health distress in college and oftentimes, faculty are the first to observe these behaviors. The Mental Health and Well-being Competency Certificate program is an initiative from University Health Services with the goal of the helping faculty members feel better equipped to respond to the growing mental health needs of students. This certificate program is designed to address the growing need of faculty preparedness in responding to this new challenge.

This training series will help faculty learn how to recognize the warning signs of distress, how to appropriately intervene and refer students in all levels of distress, how to incorporate key concepts of resilience into the curriculum, and lastly, how to respond to trauma in the classroom.

The Mental Health and Well-being Competency Certificate of Completion is designed for participants to complete in one semester. The requirements to complete the Mental Health and Well-being Competency Certificate of Completion are:

• Support Zone Training Part 1
• Support Zone Training Part 2 – It is recommended to take part 2 the same week as part 1
• Resilience in the Classroom
• Recovery Ally

Faculty will receive a certificate of completion after completing all five trainings in two consecutive semesters. Any faculty member at USC-Columbia, Palmetto College regional campuses or USC Schools of Medicine (Greenville and Columbia) are eligible.

Training Sessions

Support Zone Faculty Training
(It is strongly recommended that the required training sessions be attend in consecutive sessions during the same week.)

Support Zone Training Part 1 – Monday August 28, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Support Zone Training  Part 2 – Wednesday, August 30, 2:00 PM - 3:15 PM

Support Zone Training  Part 1 – Tuesday, December 5, 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Support Zone Training  Part 2 – Thursday, December 7, 11:00 AM - 12:15 pM

Resilience in the Classroom

Resilience in the Classroom – Thursday, September 7, 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Resilience in the Classroom – Monday, October 16, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Recovery Ally
Recovery Ally – Monday, September 25, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Recovery Ally – Tuesday, October 17, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Training Sessions Descriptions

Support Zone Training

Part 1 and Part 2 (two 75-minute sessions)

The Support Zone Faculty training is a 150-minute comprehensive training that includes suicide prevention, instruction on how to recognize and respond to signs of distress in students. The goal of this two-part training is to engage faculty as mental health allies and help them learn the basic components of suicide prevention, enhance knowledge of campus mental health resources, and rapid assessment and referral of students in distress. Participants will learn how to intervene at the mild, moderate, and severe levels of distress and how to refer students to the appropriate.

Support Zone Training Part 1
The first half of the Support Zone training focuses on providing context for the necessity of faculty and staff being well-versed in recognizing and responding to students experiencing mental health distress. The facilitator will review definitions, national and local statistics about mental health in college students and discuss how stigma affects help-seeking behaviors. The facilitator will also discuss how COVID-19 has exacerbated the aforementioned issues.

This session will also cover crisis support protocol, how to recognize signs of distress, warning signs of suicide, non-suicidal self-injury, and how to respond and intervene to a student of concern.

Support Zone Training Part 2
The second half of the Support Zone training focuses on participants learning how to refer students of concern experiencing varying levels of distress (mild, moderate and severe), what to do if a student refuses a referral, how to maintain the student's privacy, and how to follow-up with the student.

This session includes role-plays and other interactive activities to help participants practice their recently acquired skills. The facilitator will also discuss the how responding to students of concern affects faculty/staff mental health and how to respond accordingly.

This session includes a review of resources specific to faculty/staff needs and tips on dealing with COVID-19 related stressors. Lastly, the facilitator will review campus and community resources to ensure participants have a thorough understanding of what is available to students and when to use each resource.

Resilience in the Classroom 

The Resiliency in the Classroom training is a 60-minute training that focuses on three major components of resilience—self-compassion, dealing with failure, and coping skills and how to incorporate these components into the classroom. Resilience has been shown to be associated to academic success and psychological well-being. This session will help instructors identify how they can strengthen students’ resilience and help them adapt to change and hardships by integrating these core competencies into their curriculum.

Recovery Ally

Through Recovery Ally workshops, Gamecock Recovery strives to empower students, faculty and staff to make campus more accepting, engaging, and supportive of students in recovery from substance use disorder. Learn to confront myths about substance use disorder, support someone in early recovery, and advocate for a recovery-oriented campus culture.

Using a recovery oriented systems of care model, faculty and staff sessions focus on conveying campus norms in the classroom and building recovery-supportive workplaces.