Hokie ClubSpearheaded by the Sport Psychology department and the Counseling and Athletic Mental Performance (CAMP) staff, Virginia Tech Athletics recently completed a series of impactful suicide prevention workshops for all varsity programs. These sessions are designed for student-athletes, coaches and staff members to identify the warning signs of suicide and be vigilant in the pursuit of getting help for those in need.
"The content is really geared towards being able to recognize warning signs that somebody may be having thoughts of harming themselves," said Dr. Gary Bennett, Associate Athletics Director, Clinical and Sport Psychologist. "In addition to being educated about warning signs among their friends and teammates, there are likely people in the room who have had those thoughts themselves."
The workshops began in the fall of 2021 as a response to an array of shocking student-athlete suicides throughout the country. As the program evolved in fall 2022, each team scheduled a time to attend one seminar hosted by Bennett and fellow CAMP staff counselors Lauren Naldo and Paul Knackstedt.
Danny White, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Student-Athlete Services/Student Affairs, oversees the workings of the CAMP staff and credits Dr. Bennett, Knackstedt and Naldo for their important progress of instilling awareness in student-athletes and staff members. White, along with Director of Athletics Whit Babcock, helped lead the charge for these workshops to become a reality.
"What people don't know is our CAMP staff is helping our student-athletes 24 hours a day," White said. "Credit our staff for what they do in these sessions. These sessions are about 'Let us tell you how you can walk alongside somebody or intervene should a teammate or friend really need you.'"
The "How to Save a Life" seminars start off with the CAMP staff sharing alarming, yet important statistics about the prevalence of suicide. It is the second highest cause of death amongst college-age adults, leading Dr. Bennett and his staff to share the warning signs of someone who is considering self-harm to each student-athlete as a preventative measure.
"For most people who die by suicide, they leave clues," Bennett stated. "So if we know how to recognize those clues beforehand and that leads to the last part and that's, you know, what do you do with that? How do you ask somebody the right kind of question to determine if you need to make a referral? If you need to walk them down to our offices or let somebody know about your concern? These are all questions that we want to answer for our student-athletes."
White does not hesitate to acknowledge the impact of the sessions' content on Hokie student-athletes.
"The CAMP staff begin the sessions with a question: 'How many of you have been impacted by suicide?' and very few don't raise their hand," White recalled. "Our student-athletes have busy lives, they have class, practice, study halls and other things they need to get to. When you observe these sessions, they're all engaged. You can see the impact of what the CAMP staff is doing."
The CAMP staff completed 18 seminars over the course of the fall and beginning of the winter sports seasons, with sometimes multiple teams attending the session in the Merryman football meeting room together. Although this was originally done as a result of schedule restraints for the student-athletes, Dr. Bennett and White thought that intermixing the teams for the suicide prevention workshops has displayed a greater impact.
"It's really like a brotherhood, a sisterhood," White said. "All of them being in the same room and raising their hand, it's an unfortunate connecting point, but it is a connecting point, I think that is a good outcome. These student-athletes know that they are connected. We care about this topic, and they can reach out to our staff for support."
Dr. Bennett, a former student-athlete himself, realizes the importance the suicide prevention workshops play in creating a comfortable environment for Hokie student-athletes to be vulnerable and seek help when they need it.
"The thing with someone who reaches a point where they consider suicide as an option is that they have reached a point of hopelessness," Bennett said. "But with teammates and staff members intervening, we start to give them a glimmer of hope. I have no doubt that we're gonna see in the future some amazing stories of people who are on the brink of dying by suicide and have gone on to impact the lives of a lot of people. Our hope is to help build an environment where individuals feel supported and cared for, especially during times where their struggles are very real."
Learn more about how you can support CAMP here.