“Caring communities: we are with you”: CRUCH universities unite for suicide prevention

10/09/2026
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Within the framework of World Suicide Prevention Day, the CRUCH universities have organized various initiatives aimed at caring for the mental health and well-being of their communities.

This year, the CRUCH University Coexistence and Mental Health Commission launched a campaign to highlight the value of care, prevention, and support.

“Communities that care: we are with you” This is the motto that will bring together the universities of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH) this year on the occasion of World Suicide Prevention Day. The message, promoted by the CRUCH's Commission on University Coexistence and Mental Health, seeks to emphasize that prevention and mental health care are a shared responsibility that involves the entire university community.

This communications campaign aims to support the various actions that institutions will carry out to mark this date and, at the same time, to highlight the work that universities do throughout the year through promotion and prevention programs, care and support, action protocols, and training. 

For Osvaldo Corrales, executive vice president of CRUCH (Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities), the growing importance of mental health in the country, particularly after the pandemic, poses significant challenges for higher education institutions. “Those of us dedicated to the field of education have been able to observe how this issue affects our students and the educational communities to which they belong, and we also witness daily the significant gaps that exist in our healthcare system to address this challenge comprehensively,” he points out.

Faced with this reality, Corrales highlights the work that universities have been developing within their own institutional responsibilities. “For several years now, we have been developing a set of policies to promote mental health and positive coexistence, with a special focus on suicide prevention. Additionally, we have been strengthening our psychological and social support services for students at psychosocial risk,” she states.

The executive vice president also emphasized the importance of addressing these challenges collaboratively. “Within CRUCH, we are especially aware that a positive university experience requires conditions that, based on respectful coexistence among the various sectors that make up our universities, promote and strengthen mental health and resilience among our students,” he stated.

In this context, he adds that collaborative work between institutions allows them to “learn about best practices and the results of some innovative initiatives adopted by some of our universities.” He also mentions the work of the University Coexistence and Mental Health Commission, which, he explains, has addressed emerging issues and whose current challenges include “generating some basic standards for the care of our communities in this area.”.

He World Suicide Prevention Day is commemorated every September 10th to raise awareness about suicide and promote prevention efforts. The date was established in 2003 by the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO).

Responses from CRUCH universities

In recent years, CRUCH universities have made progress in formalizing and strengthening their mental health promotion and suicide prevention initiatives within their communities. This work ranges from initiatives focused on well-being and strengthening bonds, identity, and a sense of belonging, to specific strategies for awareness-raising, early detection, guidance, referral, and intervention in high-risk situations.

Among the actions undertaken by the institutions are talks, workshops, classroom interventions, and community activities, all aimed at raising awareness and providing tools to address mental health and suicidal behavior. This also includes training university communities to recognize warning signs, dispel myths and stigmas, identify risk situations, and learn about support and referral channels, both within the institutions themselves and to the external network.

This work has also involved developing responses to situations of suicidal ideation and attempts, and advancing postvention strategies aimed at supporting communities when a suicide occurs. In addition, the CRUCH Commission on University Coexistence and Mental Health plans to create new opportunities for collaboration among universities to share best practices, experiences, and challenges, as well as to identify innovative strategies for prevention, intervention, and postvention.

The Commission's co-chair, Patricia Astroza, emphasizes that one of the main advances has been addressing suicide more openly within institutions. "It has forced us to confront the issue head-on with great responsibility and discuss it within university communities, which is the first and most important step in preventing suicide," she states.

In this context, he emphasizes that prevention begins long before specialized care and that the central challenge is timely action. In his view, “any action taken to prevent suicide, from the moment we talk about the issue, is prevention, and the focus must be on intervening in time. That is the focus we need.”.

Astroza also highlights the importance of building university environments where people can express their need for support. “We need to raise awareness within the wider community that it’s okay not to be okay, and therefore it’s also okay to ask for help. Creating caring communities also means establishing safe spaces where I can ask for this help and know that I’ll receive a helping hand,” she concludes.

Care as a shared responsibility

The CRUCH University Coexistence and Mental Health Commission has promoted a comprehensive approach to mental health, which seeks to go beyond addressing crisis situations.

The Commission's co-chair, Valeska Grau, explains that “the Commission has promoted a perspective that understands mental health as a multidimensional phenomenon and not as an exclusively clinical or individual matter. This means recognizing that the well-being of university communities depends on environmental, organizational, and cultural factors, and that daily life—how we relate to each other, how we resolve conflicts, how we include those who are different—is as crucial to mental health as the availability of specialized care.”.

From this perspective, care is understood as a shared responsibility, involving both institutions and those who are part of them. This is also the idea behind the motto “Communities that care: we are with you”: to foster connections, promote support, and build university spaces where it is possible to recognize support needs and respond to them promptly.

This approach also translates into a way of addressing mental health institutionally. As Grau points out, the Commission “has promoted a model that combines promotion, early prevention, and detection, instead of focusing the institutional response solely on crisis intervention.”.

Grau, who serves as a student mediator for the Ombuds Office at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC), elaborates on the meaning of the motto: “A community that cares for itself is a community where well-being doesn't rely solely on specialized mental health services, but rather on how we relate to each other every day. That's why we've emphasized promoting a culture of care among the members of the university community—students, faculty, and staff.”.

Along these lines, he adds that “we have emphasized the importance of educating for dialogue, listening, and the peaceful resolution of conflicts: these are skills that educational communities must teach and actively practice, not protocols that are only activated once something has already broken down. The Commission’s work has also promoted the development of collaborative mechanisms such as mediation, dialogue facilitation, and restorative practices, understood not only as instruments of resolution, but as a way of instilling these capacities for mutual care into the institutional culture.”.

Activities for World Day

The commemoration of September 10th is an opportunity to highlight the various initiatives developed by universities, but also to reinforce a commitment that extends throughout the year: to contribute to building university communities that care for, support, and promote the well-being of all the people who comprise them.

Text: CRUCH Communications