Provides relative to suicide prevention plans at colleges and universities

House Bill 626 enacts a new statute, Louisiana Revised Statutes 17:1819, establishing mandatory suicide prevention requirements for all public postsecondary education institutions in Louisiana. The legislation creates three core components: first, institutions must post the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number 988 and any available local and state suicide prevention hotline numbers on their websites and print this information on student identification cards; second, institutions must implement comprehensive suicide prevention initiatives including mandatory information sessions for all entering students (full-time, part-time, undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, including transfers) about mental health services and warning signs, with the requirement that this information be delivered through interactive formats such as live presentations, online programs, or videos rather than paper materials alone, and must ensure trained mental health professionals are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week either on campus or through remote access by telephone or other electronic means; and third, institutions must establish systems for collecting and reporting aggregated, nonidentifiable data on suicide risk assessments including the total number conducted annually, demographic breakdowns by race, ethnicity, and gender, and the number of referrals to mental health services resulting from those assessments.

Public postsecondary education institutions throughout Louisiana, including universities and community colleges, are the entities directly affected by this legislation. Students, particularly entering students across all enrollment categories, will receive mandatory suicide prevention information and gain improved access to mental health resources through the twenty-four-hour availability requirement. Mental health professionals and counseling staff at these institutions will need to ensure adequate staffing and remote capacity to meet the continuous availability mandate. Institutional administrators will bear responsibility for implementing the website postings, student identification card modifications, student information programs, and data collection and reporting systems. The legislation does not impose direct costs on individual students or private citizens but requires institutional commitment of resources to establish and maintain these prevention systems.

The statute operates within Louisiana's regulatory framework governing higher education institutions under Title 17 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, which contains the education code. The enactment responds to recommendations from the Task Force on African American Suicide Rates, addressing a public health concern specific to higher education settings. The data collection requirement's emphasis on aggregated and nonidentifiable information protects individual student privacy while enabling institutions and policymakers to identify patterns and evaluate the effectiveness of prevention efforts. The legislation addresses a gap in existing law by creating uniform, statewide standards for suicide prevention across all public postsecondary institutions rather than leaving such initiatives to individual institutional discretion.