Kate Ayotte’s passion for the wellness of Central Connecticut State University students stretches far beyond the walls of her tiny office in Carroll Hall. For her, it reaches out to the campus and beyond.

As the Wellness Program Administrator for Suicide Prevention, Ayotte’s goal has always been to inspire her community with hope and support. Alongside her colleagues, she was able to do just that in light of Suicide Prevention Week.

“I think it helped a lot of students,” Ayotte said. “It felt like they feel like they became more aware of the resources on-campus and how to access them which was awesome.”

One of the resources Ayotte hoped to promote were the wellness services on-campus, a program she began working in after graduating CCSU in 2017. According to her, it has become one of the most important aspects on campus, helping students who may be in a difficult situation. 

Though making students aware of the wellness services on-campus was a large part of the week, one of the most resonating for some CCSU students was the Semicolon Project. In honor of it, Ayotte helped set up a table featuring different colored gel pens students could choose from to get the meaningful punctuation as a temporary tattoo.

“The semicolon represents where a sentence could have ended but the author chose to keep going,” Ayotte said. “It was amazing because a lot of students were actually coming up to me who already had the actual tattoo.”

Ayotte also helped administer what she believes was one of the most important activities on-campus: QPR training.

“QPR,” or “Question, Persuade, Refer,” was available to CCSU in an effort to equip students or other participants help recognize signs of suicide. With the recognition, the hope is that the individual would then be able to offer hope and persuade the person to find help. 

“Everything was about spreading positivity and reinforcing suicide prevention,” Ayotte said. “It [was] about being there for each other [because] suicide affects so many students in one way or another.”

Ayotte also said Student Wellness Services will continue to hold events that deal with suicide and suicide prevention throughout the semester. One of those activities will be “Fresh Check Day,” a mental health fair that promotes wellness and suicide prevention.

Despite the fact that suicide prevention week is over, Ayotte said that does not mean that the hope and support provided to CCSU should stop.

“Suicide prevention should be every day,” she concluded. “I think the theme and just creating the awareness is so important [because] that’s how you end the stigma and start carrying out the idea of being there for each other and building a community of support.”