The provost's office has launched a University-wide initiative called Caring for the Harvard Community, aimed at teaching employees who work with students how to recognize and deal with "students in distress."

The preventive initiative is co-coordinated by the Office of the Provost and the University Student Health Coordinating Board. Its university-wide nature makes it unique among recent efforts to improve student health resources.

The event will include a series of workshops and will kick off with a keynote speech by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison, a nationally known psychiatrist and author who wrote Night Falls Fast and An Unquiet Mind.

The initiative formally begins Oct. 18 and includes seminars for students and staff.

The "Caring for the Community" program also includes a recently issued brochure for Harvard employees who work frequently with students.

Each school has a different insert for the brochure, listing resources that faculty can turn to if they feel students are in immediate need.

Such brochures were recommended by a provost-commissioned report on mental health services, released last December.

--Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan