UW rolls out suicide-prevention training to student athletes

The University of Washington in Seattle has launched a formal program to introduce student athletes to suicide-prevention strategies. Stakeholders think it is among the first U.S. efforts to require college athletes to undergo training to recognize signs that a teammate might be struggling, and to broach an intensely personal question: Are you thinking about suicide? 

The 90-minute training course, which also is mandatory for all Husky coaches and athlete-facing staff, began in December 2024 with a few smaller teams like golf and volleyball. By the end of June 2025, 625 athletes on all 22 teams will have received the training. 

“One thing we’re trying to highlight with the training is that suicide prevention is everybody's responsibility — not just coaches, but student athletes, as well,” said Kelly Schloredt, a clinical professor of family medicine at the UW School of Medicine. She also directs psychological services for UW Athletics. 

“Student athletes spend so much time together: They live together, they practice together, they go to school together. They are much more likely than coaches and staff to see their teammates’ ups and downs and changes in behavior,” she said. 

Building on that familiarity, the training is intended to help athletes feel empowered to ask a teammate about depression and suicide and, depending on the answer, to know what steps to take next.  

The university’s initiative was prompted by the NCAA’s 2020 adoption of a “Mental Health Best Practices” document and 2022 adoption of a new constitution that directed member schools to ensure student athletes’ access to mental health services.  

An implicit aim of those decisions, Schloredt said, was to reverse a decade-long rise in death by suicide among college sports competitors.  

This trend was documented in a 2024 study led by Bridget Whelan, a UW family medicine research scientist. Whelan and coauthors cited the pressures on college athletes: “school, internal and external performance expectations, time demands, injury, athletic identity and physical fatigue.”

Whelan also pointed to social media apps as a likely contributing factor to the rise in athletes’ untimely deaths. These apps allow athletes to see themselves in public much more than was the case 20 years ago. And not always for the better.  

“People celebrate the wins, but athletes’ performances can be picked apart. One negative comment can stand out over a thousand positives,” she said. 

The UW program’s curriculum was developed at Forefront Suicide Prevention, a center of excellence within the School of Social Work. Schloredt and Whelan started working with Forefront stakeholders in late 2022 to customize the content for Husky coaches and staff. In mid-2023, the idea to expand it to players won enthusiastic support from Athletics administrators.  

Making the course mandatory was “probably one of the easiest decisions we ever made,” said Mike Dillon, UW senior associate athletic director for health and performance.  

“We felt like there was such benefit that our student athletes had to take away from this, not only in the community and environment they're in, but in their family environment (and) their communities back home where they're from. This has a broader spread than just UW Athletics.” 

All players will get either the full training or a refresher every year they wear a Husky jersey, Dillon said. 

Dillon has been with UW Athletics for nearly two decades. In recent years, he said, U.S. colleges have been jolted by a succession of suicide deaths among student athletes. He has heard firsthand the resulting distress expressed by Husky players. So when the NCAA adopted formal steps to improve student athletes’ mental wellbeing, Dillon was an eager collaborator. 

“I think there's so much opportunity to be proactive in how we interact with our student athletes, not only around the idea of suicidality, but around everything as it relates to them and their presence in sport and in life,” he said. 

This year, Schloredt is the course’s primary facilitator, supported by Whelan and three other staff members who completed Forefront’s certification process.  

During the course, they provide student athletes with information on suicide warning signs, appropriate responses and resources to support others in need. The athletes then take turns role-playing to become familiar with asking questions that are direct but phrased with respect and compassion. Then there’s a debrief in which athletes discuss their comfort with asking these questions.  

Course content can hit too close to home for some students, Schloredt said. So two facilitators are present at every session, allowing one to accompany a student who might leave the room amid feelings of grief or panic.  

Forefront's suicide-prevention course is called “LEARN Saves Lives.” LEARN is an acronym for early steps in a potential intervention: 

• Look for signs 
• Empathize and listen 
• Ask directly about suicide 
• Reduce the dangers 
• Next steps 

LEARN's steps accrue to an overt goal, said Larry Wright, Forefront’s director and an assistant dean in the School of Social Work.  

“We want people to know more about suicide. We want them to feel like they can do something to prevent suicide, and ultimately we want them to take action to prevent suicide,” he said.  

Forefront staff members conduct about 100 LEARN presentations a year. Since 2020, they have reached some 35,000 people, mostly Washingtonians, in community, organizational and family settings. 

"What we hear from young people frequently is isolation: ‘I don't know who to turn to. I don't have somebody that I feel comfortable with.’ And you have adults that simply don't know what to do,” Wright said. “I think it's natural. You want to give people their privacy. If you see a young person who's obviously sullen, you might not want to go up and say, ‘Are you OK?’ But that's actually what we try to promote.” 

Recognizing that someone might be suicidal is akin to encountering someone who is unconscious and not breathing, Wright added. 

“If you knew CPR, you'd go give them CPR. It doesn't mean that you are taking care of everything, but what you're doing is keeping them alive until they can get the professional help.” 

Forefront also embraces a train-the-trainer sensibility. Course attendees are invited to take additional instruction so they can, in turn, share the lifesaving knowledge. Thus, during the 2025-26 school year, UW student athletes will have the opportunity to become course facilitators for future trainings.  

UW sophomore volleyball player Elise Hani took the LEARN course with her team in February. 

“I think knowing (that) me and my teammates can now be resources not only for each other, but for anyone in our lives, anyone in athletics, and knowing that we're so well-equipped to fight against suicide and the epidemic — that is really special,” she said.   

Hani also has recognized the societal shift away from suicide being a taboo topic.  

“I think that sentiment of no one's alone, there's always people that you can reach out to, has been reinforced and is something I never question. And I think that's been really huge to remove some of the stigma around this conversation.” 

Related: Access downloadable video soundbites and b-roll of UW student athletes in competition and stakeholders discussing the suicide-prevention program.

For details about UW Medicine, please visit http://uwmedicine.org/about.