Grants Dashboard

Program Title: Compass Health, Inc. GLS Youth Suicide Project. Compass Health, Inc. provides a full array of health care services and support to patients throughout multiple underserved communities. The purpose of the program is to support states with implementing youth (up to 24 years of age) suicide prevention and early intervention strategies in schools, educational institutions, juvenile justice systems, substance use and mental health programs, foster care systems, pediatric health programs, and other child/youth serving entities. Our system has designed a staffing pattern consisting of hospital access liaisons and community support specialists that will provide on-site support with partnering hospitals, urgent care, and other inpatient psychiatric facilities, as well as our own onsite pediatric primary care to support youth at a heightened risk of suicide with continuity of care and immediate follow-up. Additional staffing will include education and outreach specialists that will provide training and support to youth serving entities to increase entities that can identify and work with youth at risk of suicide and increase the capacity of clinical providers to assess, manage and treat youth at risk of suicide. This effort will be done in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Mental Health to support state-wide access to evidenced based training opportunities. The only restriction placed on the program by SAMHSA is the age requirement – efforts will be targeting children/youth who are at risk of suicide – our program will ensure all individuals have equal access to intervention and quality care. Our population of focus for the program will target two specific sub-populations that are at a heightened risk of suicide, Young Black Males and LGBTQIA+ populations. Missouri continues to be in the top 12 in the entire United States with higher rates of youth suicide. We will provide trauma-informed, evidenced-based, and culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate early intervention, assessment services, and screening programs to youth who are at risk for mental/emotional disorders that may lead to suicide attempts. This includes providing immediate support and information resources from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center to communities and families of youth who are at risk for or who have attempted suicide. We will build upon our current response system to ensure timely referrals with partnering health care urgent cares/hospitals/inpatient psychiatric and pediatric primary care facilities to incorporate safety planning and steps to remain in contact with at-risk youth during the referral process and provide follow-up care protocols throughout Missouri. The GLS Initiative will serve 1,300 youth who are at risk of suicide and provide education/training to targeted audiences - 14,500 individuals. This includes the following yearly totals: YR1: 2,150; YR2: 3,750; YR3: 3,800; YR4: 3,300; YR5: 2,800. Compass Health, Inc. staff will provide evidenced-based treatments including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, and the Zero Suicide Model of Care – fully supported by the Missouri Department of Mental Health. These interventions have been chosen based on their success with the population of focus and years of demonstrated clinical efficacy. Given the initiative has a state-wide focus – specific to training and education activities, the demographics of the initiative will reflect the demographics of Missouri, as noted in recent US Census reports. As the state is predominantly Caucasian, we have selected sub-populations that have tremendously higher rates of suicide and suicide attempts, including the two marginalized populations listed within this abstract, to reduce stigma, increase engagement in life-saving treatments, foster resilience, and eliminate Missouri from being listed as a top-ranking state for the number of youth suicides.

In 2019, during the 86th Texas Legislative Session, several bills were enacted to address suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention throughout the state. Senate Bill (SB) 11 and House Bill (HB) 18 required suicide prevention, intervention and postvention training for school staff. Additionally, HB 3980 required the Statewide Behavioral Health Coordinating Council (SBHCC) to complete a comprehensive report on current suicide prevention efforts being implemented by state agencies who receive state funding for behavioral health services and to identify and outline potential gaps and barriers within these efforts across the state. In 2020, the SBHCC completed this report and made recommendations for improving suicide-related data collection to better inform policy and procedures, and to decrease suicide to those at highest risk for suicide. The Health and Human Services Commission's (HHSC) state suicide prevention team is proposing Project Healing and Engaging After Loss (HEAL), a partnership with select local mental health authorities (LMHAs) that serve geographic areas with higher rates of suicide deaths to strengthen suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention support and services to individuals, families, and communities. The population of focus is children and transition age youth (youth), ages 10-24, who are at risk for or have mental health disorders that may lead to a suicide attempt or death, including those identified at higher risk for suicide after a suicide attempt or a suicide death of a friend or a loved one. The HHSC state suicide prevention team has identified five goals and eighteen key strategies designed to provide the greatest impact for the population of focus. The identified goals and objectives for the project are to: 1) Implement an engagement and transition plan for youth, ages 10-24, who are at risk for suicide, prior to and following discharge from an acute inpatient psychiatric facility and or emergency department to outpatient LMHA services by implementing a caring contacts program between nine identified LMHAs and at least one acute psychiatric facility or emergency department in each LMHA’s largest county serving 750 youth by end of project period; 2) Increase the capacity and competency of LMHA staff to screen, assess, manage, and treat youth at risk for suicide by providing training in the utilization of the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment, and Safety Planning Intervention (SPI) to at least 125 LMHA staff and an additional 150 individuals across the state with a total of 1000 staff trained by the end of the project period; 3) Increase awareness, early identification, and intervention for youth, ages 10-24, who are at risk for suicide by providing About Suicide to Save a Life (AS+K) training for at least 350 individuals in youth-serving organizations per year for a total of 1,750 trained by the end of the project period; 4) Establish Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide (LOSS) teams in the identified LMHAs to provide immediate postvention support, services, resources, and connection to support groups to families and peers of youth who have died by suicide beginning in their largest counties with the potential to impact a total of 2,000 individuals across 63 counties; and 5) Establish and expand youth prevention and postvention support for youth who may be at risk for suicide by initiating and supporting partnerships between 25 public school districts and or 10 colleges or universities, and organizations which promote suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention programming in schools, to implement at least one suicide prevention program with a total of 1,000 students being positively impacted through this support collaboration.

The Massachusetts (MA) Department of Public Health (MDPH) Suicide Prevention Program (SPP) will implement the MA Youth Suicide Prevention Project (MA-YSPP) across the Commonwealth. SPP will support 10 community-based teams and eight school districts in the creation and implementation of suicide prevention and early intervention strategies for youth and young adults under the age of 25 years with the aim of (1) increasing the number of youth-serving organizations who are able to identify and work with youth at risk of suicide; (2) increasing the capacity of clinical service providers to assess, manage, and treat youth at risk of suicide; and (3) improving the continuity of care and follow-up of youth identified to be at risk for suicide, including those who have been discharged from emergency department and inpatient psychiatric units. SPP will collaborate with and leverage the existing statewide and regional suicide prevention coalitions as champions and conveners of the community-based teams. Teams will be supported with capacity building support, technical assistance, and funding to build planning committees to develop and implement sustainable, community-specific suicide prevention-intervention-postvention pathways that are timely, seamless, and coordinated to create a suicide safer Commonwealth. SPP will partner with UMass of Amherst’s Center for Program Evaluation as the Project Evaluator.

Project Summary Abstract: Transforming Youth Suicide Prevention in Michigan (TYSP) is a statewide program housed within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services in collaboration with the University of Michigan. TYSP has a strong track record of developing and sustaining unique partnerships that facilitate the implementation and evaluation of best practice suicide prevention and intervention strategies across youth-serving organizations. Capitalizing on these partnerships, TYSP program goals are as follows: Goal 1: Expand Michigan’s clinical safety net by leveraging TYSP’s Youth Suicide Prevention Emergency Department (ED) Network to promote improvements in clinical care and to scale-up innovative supports for youth and families in crisis. Goal 2: Advance the decade-long partnership between TYSP and Michigan’s Child Welfare (CW) Administration which promotes suicide prevention competency development and the implementation of trauma-informed, evidence-based screening, risk assessment, and brief interventions in child protective services, foster care, and CW residential facilities. Goal 3: Increase the capacity of Michigan’s clinical providers to screen, assess, and treat youth and young adults with suicide risk via pre-service training and continuing education. Goal 4: Support youth-serving agencies and local communities to implement culturally tailored suicide prevention strategies aligned with community needs via technical assistance, training, educational, and funding opportunities. Goal 5: Build Michigan’s postvention capacity by expanding a new network of Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors (LOSS) teams across the state with funding, training, and technical assistance. TYSP’s population of focus will be all youth up to age 24 in the state of Michigan, with tailored strategies for four populations: 1) youth seeking crisis services, 2) CW-involved youth, 3) minoritized youth and youth with limited access to care, and 4) suicide bereaved youth. TYSP will increase capacity in youth-serving organizations and within clinical providers to identify, support, and treat youth at risk for suicide. The University of Michigan’s Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES) will continue to serve as a Technical Assistance Center (TAC) for Michigan’s Youth Suicide Prevention ED Network, supporting implementation of a developmentally tailored, family centered adaptation of Zero Suicide and translating innovative programs including parent-focused text messaging follow-up and a school-based continuity of care program into a growing number of ED catchment areas. Recognizing the elevated risk profile and over-representation of marginalized youth in the CW system, TYSP will continue to offer unique workforce trainings, building competencies in recognition, treatment linkage, and the implementation of safety and support interventions in the home setting. TYSP will offer training in best practice care management and treatment as well as post-training consultation to clinicians serving our highest risk youth in the state, strengthening the network of individuals able to care for youth and families at risk. A network of state government and private partners, including those with lived experience, will continue to advise the program and each other to enhance communication and strategic planning with a new task force devoted to ensuring equity in prevention planning and resource allocation. Last, TYSP will strengthen and expand a network of LOSS teams in Michigan, providing on scene support to suicide bereaved youth and families. Estimated number of people to be served annually: 3,200 Estimated number of people to be served as a result of the award of this grant: 16,000