Wash. Rev. Code § 28B.20.510
RCW 28B.20.510
Intent-Findings- 2018 c 293 : "(1) Washington has been a leader in addressing suicide as a public health issue. The legislature intends for Washington to continue its leadership by supporting the creation of comprehensive suicide prevention and behavioral health initiatives for postsecondary students. In 2015, the legislature created the mental health and suicide prevention in higher education task force. The task force was charged with determining the policies, resources, and technical assistance needed to support postsecondary institutions in improving access to behavioral health services and improving suicide prevention responses. In November 2016, the task force issued its report on mental health and suicide prevention in higher education.
(2) According to the task force report:
(a) The 2005 American college health assessment survey found that nine and one-half percent of students seriously considered suicide, one and one-half percent of students nationwide have attempted suicide, and less than twenty percent were in treatment. According to the 2015 American college health association national college health assessment, seventy-five percent of postsecondary students reported feeling overwhelmed and thirty percent reported feeling so depressed it was difficult to function. More than one-third of students reported anxiety as negatively impacting academics and almost one-quarter said depression negatively impacted academics;
(b) There is incomplete data on suicide deaths among Washington's postsecondary students and the availability of behavioral health resources on Washington's campuses. There is currently no statewide system in place to track this data;
(c) Lack of funding for behavioral health resources across all sectors is the largest barrier to providing services for postsecondary students statewide;
(d) Due to funding constraints, the level of professional mental and behavioral health counseling is often limited for postsecondary institutions in all sectors. For example, six institutions in the public two-year sector servicing nearly fifty thousand students have either no professional mental health providers to counsel students or have such limited resources that the counselor to student ratio was as low as one to nearly eight thousand five hundred in 2014-2015.
(3) The legislature also recognizes that, as of 2016, there were over sixteen thousand student veterans and dependents enrolled in Washington's community and technical colleges, and approximately four thousand veterans and dependents enrolled in Washington's four-year institutions of higher education. The legislature recognizes that the risk for suicide is significantly higher among veterans when compared to nonveteran adults in the United States and that student veterans face unique challenges and often have vastly different life experiences from traditional students. According to a study presented a few years ago at an annual convention of the American psychological association, almost half of military veterans who are enrolled in college have contemplated suicide at some point and twenty percent have planned to kill themselves.
(4) The legislature intends to implement task force recommendations by:
(a) Creating a publicly available statewide resource for postsecondary institutions;
(b) Developing and centralizing data collection; and
(c) Creating a grant program for resource-challenged institutions to help develop suicide prevention programs in those institutions, which may include for example, enhancing treatment services to student veterans; creating campus-wide crisis services; expanding existing crisis plans to integrate suicide intervention; reentry, including medical leave that supports reentry; postvention; and creating links and referral systems between campus behavioral health resources and community-based mental health resources." [2018 c 293 s 1.]