Submitted Photo A new online course has been launched by local nonprofit Rural Minds, in partnership with Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

A local nonprofit with a focus on mental health in agriculture and rural areas, Rural Minds, has partnered with Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, to release a new online course that was launched in mid-September.

The course, titled “Mental Health and Suicide Prevention in Rural America,” is catered towards veterinarians, vet students and agribusiness professionals. It is designed to give learners practical support strategies and resources to navigate mental health challenges in rural communities. While it is focused mostly on veterinarians and agribusiness professionals, the course is free and open to anyone with an interest.

Jeff Winton, Rural Minds founder and chairman, said this partnership with Cornell came about through his own involvement with the college as an alumni, and in working as a volunteer on the Dean’s Advisory Council he discovered the shared interest between himself and the Dean of Cornell’s Veterinary School, Lorin Warnick, in mental health in rural areas.

Winton added that Cornell University has 13 colleges connected to the university including the veterinary school, and that Warnick was convinced that this course was needed. This is something that the two organizations have been working together on for the last few years, and which was officially launched on Sept 18 as a free course. Winton said the course is free because Warnick, who is a veterinarian from a rural area of Montana, understood the need for the course.

“One of the reasons we felt this was important to do is because of our continued concern with mental illness and suicide in veterinarians, farmers and ranchers,” Winton said. “Farmers and ranchers are twice as likely to die by suicide than other professions, and the same is true for veterinarians. Out of all healthcare related professions vets are twice as likely to commit suicide than others and one in six contemplate it at some point.”

Veterinarians are a key part of every farm, according to Winton, and he said Rural Minds has a concern for the profession and the role that they play. He referred to vets as the “eyes and ears” of the farming community, adding that while his dad was still alive he would be more likely to ask the vet about medical problems before his doctor, because that is how much his father trusted the vet.

The online course is not only for veterinary students and has been shared at schools across the state and country. Winton said the course will train these students to be the eyes and ears of the farming community, but will also help them with their own stressors as well. Vets are constantly called on to euthanize animals, and Winton gave a specific example of giving a talk to poultry based veterinarians, who afterwards told him that they have been extremely stressed because of having to euthanize thousands of birds thanks to the Avian Influenza. He said being a vet is a profession that can require someone to be on the job 24/7.

The new online course can help provide vets with a lot of timely and practical information that is designed to help with their own stress and help them to help clients on farms or in small animal clinics.

“Animals can trigger a lot of emotions, both really happy and really sad,” Winton said. “Veterinarians are there in both times when people are really happy at the beginning or really sad as their animals come to the end of their lives, and this course can help them to help their clients in their practice.”

Winton emphasized that the course is free, which he said is not common in courses similar to this, and that it can help those who take it learn what to do and not to do in certain situations, teaching them how to be with someone in that moment. The course is also only an hour long and provides the ability for learners to start and stop as needed, along with the ability to go back to parts of the course as they want.

Videos are set throughout the course that include Winton, the Dean of Cornell, staff members and trained professionals from NY Farm Net, who have been working to help the course be available all over farming communities and not just vets. Winton said the course has not only been shared across the United States already, but has also reached parts of the Middle East, as he had someone reach out to him from there who had seen the course.

“We are excited and proud of what we have accomplished and we were able to launch it in September, which is Suicide Awareness Month, which we thought was timely,” Winton said. “We hope this is something that can continue to evolve and be used for many years.”

Plans are already in the works to evolve the course, including maybe a refresher course. Winton said this is just the beginning for the course and that the hope is that more organizations such as 4-H, FFA, and local churches will pick it up to use as a basis for their meetings. Winton said there is also a possibility of having the course translated into other languages, especially since many members of the agricultural community are Spanish or Asian speakers.

Updates and new developments to the course will be able to be found at Rural Minds’ website, ruralminds.org, which also has webinars posted every so often, that can also be found in the archive section of the website. Rural Minds can also be found on social media for regular updates.

While Rural Minds is reaching their third anniversary soon, and Winton said they are still relatively new, he said they are excited about the progress they have already made so far. He said sometimes giving people the ability to talk about their issues and tell their stories can make a big difference and let them know they are not alone. He also praised the 988 helpline, saying that sometimes that is the only lifeline people have.

“We are relatively new, but we are proud of what we have been able to accomplish so far,” Winton said. “Every 11 minutes someone commits suicide, so we can’t rest and we have to keep pushing and moving forward. We will continue to develop these partnerships and programs. We have a lot of work to do, and a lot more people to reach, but I am enthusiastic because we are making progress.”

The “Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention in Rural America” course can be found at ecornell.cornell.edu/custom/rural-mental-health/.