Palomar Health Student Wellness Center Hosts Takeover to Train Student Workers in Suicide Prevention

It was not a typical day at the Palomar Health Student Wellness Center on Tuesday. Instead of student workers welcoming guests or leading tours, campus administrators took over operations — all in the name of mental health.

The wellness center temporarily shifted staffing responsibilities to administrators so student workers could participate in QPR training. QPR, which stands for Question, Persuade, Refer, is a program that teaches people how to recognize and respond to warning signs of suicide and mental health struggles.

“It’s a really important health and wellness topic for them to learn about and to become ambassadors of hope for, but in order to support their ability to go through that training and still keep our 80,000 square foot facility open, we have administrators from around campus coming in to take over,” said Kimmel Yeager, executive director of wellness.

With that, student workers left their regular duties and stepped into a different kind of service focused on empathy and awareness.

“In this time in our world, we need to be taking care of each other,” said Mandy Womack, associate dean of students, who volunteered at the front desk. “Training people to be aware, to look for signs of depression and suicidal ideations is really an important piece for our student workers who are frontline-facing people that are interacting with their peers.”

Luke Finney ‘27, a fitness assistant and wellness ambassador, said this training will help him in his day-to-day role.

“I think that it's important to be able to support anyone in a time of need,” Finney said. “Working in the wellness center, I think that it's important to be trained so that we can handle those situations correctly. In a time where people are very focused on positive mental health and growing and working on oneself, I think it's important that we're able to support them in that.”

QPR training is available for all students, faculty and staff at USD. You can find more information by clicking here.