WECARE FUND

BACKGROUND

In response to the increasing suicidal rate among local young people, strategies to approach and connect with students were explored in hoping to provide early identification and intervention to prevent suicide.

In HKBU, mental health and suicidal prevention programmes have been organized on campus for years. Most programmes involve educational exhibition, seminars, workshops and dissemination of souvenirs. This current project attempted to integrate the use of Facebook as a social media platform and several regular educational approaches to reach objectives for suicidal prevention over BU student community.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this project is to enhance students’ awareness of mental health and warning signs of suicide, to empower students to provide support to others who are at distress, to facilitate students to refer those who are at risk to professional help and most importantly, to create a caring culture on HKBU campus.

METHODOLOGY
Through the use of social media (facebook), a special icon “Captain BU,” portray of the superhero of BU was used as a role model. Furthermore, a Facebook Fan Page of Captain BU was created. It contained information and advice on mental health and referral information, suicidal prevention, educational materials, in aim of promoting caring and support for each other. Also, students could make use of the message function on Facebook to seek help and support from Captain BU Fan Page at almost anywhere and anytime.
An emotion awareness campaign with the Counselling and Development Centre on campus was held. An educational display and a mass-painting activity were conducted. This campaign has also worked along with Captain BU to maximize the effectiveness of the whole campaign.

IMPACTS AND OUTCOMES

As a mass promotion campaign, it is believed that the Captain BU Project has had considerable impact on enhancing students’ awareness of mental health, warning signs of suicide, resources of professional psychological services and communication skills in providing peer support. In virtual reality, the Captain BU Facebook Fan Page has 1,431 followers. In real world, the Captain BU icon was posted in a lot of locations at BU to arouse students’ curiosity. 600 students and staff had participated in the emoji drawing activity and even more students had dropped by and read the display content. More than 2,000 folders with information of the HKBU Counselling and Development Centre had been distributed. In addition, positive feedback on the design and content of the materials of Captain BU Project was received.

To sum up, it is believed that a significant portion of the BU community had been exposed to some information on mental health, professional psychological assistance resources, tips on providing support and caring messages during the time of this project and their responses were positive. In this way, BU as a university with a caring culture and strong psychological support had been imprinted in students’ mind.

NUMBER OF BENEFICIARIES
6941 students and staff