Transforming Youth Suicide Prevention in Michigan (TYSP)

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 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 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.

Principle Investigator: Nina Bowser, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services 

Project Director: Lindsay DeCamp

UM Principle Investigator: Cynthia Ewell Foster 

Project Manager: Courtney Funk

Research Assistants: Mai Tran

Undergraduate Volunteers: Jordan Oppenheim, Haadiyah Muhammad

Psychiatric Emergency Services Technical Assistance Center: Cynthia Ewell Foster, Victor Hong, John Kettley, Alejandra Arango, Polly Gipson-Allen

News articles, products, and recent TYSP presentations and publications:

• Transforming Youth Suicide Prevention in Michigan-3 SAMHSA grant program (need to fix link)

• Child Welfare Certificate Suicide Prevention Modules

• Predictors of suicide coping self-efficacy among youth presenting to a psychiatric emergency department