Fresh Check Day, the signature program of the Jordan Porco Foundation, is an uplifting mental health promotion and suicide prevention event for colleges that includes interactive expo booths, peer-to-peer messaging, support of multiple campus departments and groups, free food, entertainment, and exciting prizes and giveaways. Fresh Check Day aims to create an approachable and hopeful atmosphere where students are encouraged to engage in dialogue about mental health and helps to build a bridge between students and the mental health resources available on campus, in the community, and nationally.
Using a peer-to-peer messaging model, Fresh Check Day utilizes student groups in addition to college/university staff to develop and execute interactive booths that deliver mental health and resource information in a fun and engaging way. Booth messaging reflects a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention with topics areas including specific mental health issues, high risk populations, stigma reduction, and positive coping and life skills.
In order to ensure successful implementation and continued campus mental health and suicide prevention initiatives, Fresh Check Day thrives on full endorsement and support from higher level administration. By engaging the entire college community in this campus-wide movement, students are reminded that they are not alone and that their mental health is valued just as much as their physical health or their academic standing.
The Jordan Porco Foundation (JPF) does not charge a fee for service for Fresh Check Day in consideration of varying capacities to fund large-scale mental health programming. Instead, JPF provides significant supports and asks participating schools to provide the remaining essential components within their budgetary means, including the personnel resources to plan and implement the event.
Fresh Check Day and the Best Practice Approach to Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention
In keeping with Best Practice standards, Fresh Check Day engages in as many as four areas of the Jed Foundation/SPRC’s Comprehensive Approach to Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Promotion: it promotes social connectedness, develops life skills, increases help-seeking behavior, and potentially identifies students at risk.