Suicide Prevention & Mental Health 

Background

In response to data illustrating the growing need for suicide prevention efforts primarily among youth, Polk County established the Mid-Valley Suicide Prevention Coalition in 2015. Since that time, the coalition has grown from a single county effort to a regional coalition made up of a variety of community partners representing local government, first responders, faith leaders, educators, medical providers, non-profit entities, community members, and those with lived experience. The coalition has established a training infrastructure that has supported more than 500 Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) trainings, and more than 15 Applied Suicide Intervention Skills (ASIST) trainings, giving evidence based suicide intervention tools to more than 10,500 people including both youth and adults.

In addition to the training programs, the coalition has proven itself to be a leader in working with youth to develop safe suicide prevention messaging campaigns for their schools and communities. The videos accompanying these campaigns have been viewed more than 270,000 times across all social media platforms. The combination of community trainings and messaging campaigns have helped the coalition to create a shift in culture across our communities that encourages the promotion of mental health and suicide awareness.