This fall, Syracuse University and the Barnes Center at The Arch officially launched a partnership with Kognito, a virtual training platform meant to enhance participants’ confidence and skills surrounding supporting students with mental health concerns. Participating in the Kognito training is free for all University students, faculty and staff, and there is a specific training just for students. The Peel connected with students that participated in the Kognito training to hear their biggest takeaways from the program.

Important Preparation for Emerging Professionals

As graduate students working in a professional role on campus, Kognito was very beneficial and a great simulator to learn from. The scenarios that were provided gave us the opportunity to talk through different situations and students’ varying degrees of interaction. With this, we were able to strike a balance with picking out key pieces of information a student would share and encouraging them to explain further without pushing too far. This preparation as emerging professionals is hugely important as we want to be able to support students in crisis as best as possible.

Additionally, Kognito has also helped us with our own peers since graduate students are less likely to utilize campus mental health resources due to a variety of factors. Completing the training gave us more confidence in our ability to intervene and help our peers if they are going through a crisis or need additional support.

– Riley Fanning G’23 and Aiden Ciaffaglione G’23, Graduate Assistants in Health Promotion

An Eye-Opening Experience

It really opened my eyes on how people are struggling with depression, and this activity paved the way for me to better handle these situations.

– Kevin Xie ’24

Engaging and Educational

Kognito is an engaging interactive course on suicide prevention and peer support. This training is a great way to learn how to recognize signs of distress in our peers and learn helpful language or communication strategies to support them. The most important takeaway from Kognito as a Peer Educator is learning how to refer our peers to support services and how to use resources for our own self-care as students as well.

– CloudySky Khazraishokatkhou ’24

Making Campus a Safer Place

The Kognito training truly immerses the user into a relatable situation. By doing so, it allows you to grow as a communicator and educate oneself on topics surrounding mental health, suicide prevention and substance use. As a Peer Educator, this training has made me confident in my ability to be a resource and safety net for my peers on campus. Overall, it’s something that really sets student employees on the path to make our campus a safer place.

– Dashawn Austin ’23

Interactive and Reflective Training

The Kognito training provided an interactive way to learn about suicide prevention and mental health crises. This training allowed me to reflect on how I currently and can better support my peers in need, which is especially important for health promotion work.

– Maddie Roberts ’23

The Syracuse University Kognito partnership implements strategies to improve holistic well-being of students through increased education within the lenses of mental health, suicide prevention, substance use and empathic communication.  If you’re interested in learning more or would like to take the training yourself, please visit the Barnes Center’s website.