Amresh Shrivastava, Shubhangi Parkar, Nilesh Shah Background In India suicide rates high amongst student’s population with rising numbers of student’s suicide. The National Crime Research Bauru (NCRB) the Government of India reopots that approximately 2.% suicide takes place due to failure in examination, needless to say it remains grossly underreported due to several causes.eg. legal hassels The intervention strategy for dealing with mental health issues of students is particularly dependent upon awareness about suicide amongst the parsons who are in direct touch with them. The teachers of the colleges are in an advantageous position because they are in direct touch with students and perceived as an authority figure. Unfortunately level of awareness about mental health issue and skills for intervention remains undermined. This study examines community-based awareness drive and outcome of a 2 weeks hospital-based training for a group of teachers Method The study was conducted in two phases. The first was need assessment about the mental health capacity of teachers. Designated teaches from 110 colleges affiliated to Mumbai University participated in a full day seminar with was addressed by faculties from stakeholders of multidisciplinary agencies. 10 speakers had 30 minuets each to address the participants and make qualitative assessment which was a semi structure report based upon their interaction with participants. In the second part, 15 participants who had agreed to participate in a 2 weeks training designed to be conducted at a university site for morning sessions and in 4 hospital site in a general hospital’s emergency room and psychiatric inpatient services for afternoon sessions.. 12 faculties participated in conducting this training Qualitative response from the participants was evaluated at the end of 2 weeks Results The main observations from this study were (1)that there was very poor level of awareness about mental health amongst the teachers. Majority of them did not know if conditions like depression were an illness or that it falls in preview of physicians to treat. They reported that suicide represents; ‘week mind’ and psychiatric illness is primarily because of poor capacity of the student, however they did recognize family’s role in prevention and opined that they can do very little to help due to it origin in the family. (2) They reported that hands-on training which involved actually interacting with individuals who had attempted suicide and their families was a new experience which could motivate them to interact with students more closely, that they can play a role in identification of depression and stress related problem. They did not know how to motivate students and families to go for intervention and treatment. The study shows that improving awareness, by seminars , building of motivation for referrals and for taking some responsibility for identification of suicide behavior by hospital-based training may be useful for prevention of students suicide. References .Farabaugh A, Bitran S, Nyer M, Holt DJ, Pedrelli P, Shyu I, Hollon SD, Zisook S, Baer L, Busse W, Petersen TJ, Pender M, Tucker DD, Fava M Depression and suicidal ideation in college students. Psychopathology. 2012;45(4):228-34. Epub 2012 May 22. Mackenzie S, Wiegel JR, Mundt M, Brown D, Saewyc E, Heiligenstein E, Harahan B, Fleming M. Depression and suicide ideation among students accessing campus health care. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2011 Jan;81(1):101-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01077.x. Sawyer MG, Pfeiffer S, Spence SH, Bond L, Graetz B, Kay D, Patton G, Sheffield J. School-based prevention of depression: a randomised controlled study of the beyondblue schools research initiative.J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2010 Feb;51(2):199-209. MacDonald MG.Teachers' knowledge of facts and myths about suicide.Psychol Rep. 2004 Oct;95(2):651-6