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College can be a stressful time for many students, and often many people find that it is more comfortable and easier to talk with friends about stress in their lives. Western Washington University’s is using a new program called Kognito to help educate students and staff on how to recognize when a friend, classmate or student is in distress and how to talk to them.

BRAVE, which stands for Building Resilience and Voicing Empathy, is a suicide prevention program at Western that aims to provide information and resources for suicide prevention as well as raise community awareness on the subject.  

“Our approach to suicide prevention is one called upstream suicide prevention,” said Katie St. George, a BRAVE Program staff member.  “So what we really focus on is getting students intervention and resources before a time of crisis and also to reduce the mental health stigma.”

Kognito is an online training program that uses an avatar simulation to expose students and staff to situations in which a friend or classmate is in distress and then teaches them how to handle each situation.

The program teaches students and staff how to ask important but sometimes difficult questions, like ‘Are you considering suicide?’ St. George said.

It can be difficult and confusing for students to know what the best course of action is if they are worried about a friend said Farrah Green-Palmer, BRAVE Suicide Prevention Program Manager. Kognito works to show students how they can best support their friends as well as how best to help if they are worried.

“It can be scary for students sometimes,” Greene-Palmer said. “They’re like, ‘we’ll maybe my friend’s going to be mad at me for asking that,’ or ‘I feel like I’m judging them.’” “We’re here to help and it’s better that they’re angry and alive than the opposite.”

The program is also a valuable tool for individuals who are in distress themselves because when people are trained to use Kognito, they are more likely to seek out services for themselves, Greene-Palmer said.

Kognito is used to recognize and prevent warning signs of distress that can lead to suicide, but the BRAVE Program also provides many more online training courses.

“We [BRAVE] also have a veterans one, and we have an LGBTQ one.” Greene-Palmer said.  “The LGBTQ one is more about how to be a supportive ally than about suicide prevention, but it’s also useful and helpful because that’s upstream prevention, creating a safe and supportive community.”

The BRAVE program has hosted one Kognito Coffee event, which included a discussion about the program as well as role-playing scenarios, designed to familiarize people with asking questions that may be hard to vocalize.

Another Kognito Coffee event is planned for the future, but the date has not been determined yet, Greene-Palmer said.