$3.6 million marked for suicide prevention

Funds will support programs across Idaho for five years

Students at middle and high schools across Idaho, including nine in Kootenai County, will fight teen suicide by decreasing risk factors and building positive influences thanks to state Sources of Strength grants for the upcoming school year.

For the first time, the Sources program will be extended to younger children through an elementary curriculum.

“Sources of Strength is a peer-based program that addresses students’ social-emotional and mental health needs and trains students to help each other,” said Sherri Ybarra, superintendent of public instruction. “I’m particularly excited that we are extending this proven approach to elementary schools, launching a new classroom curriculum called Sources of Strength Elementary. It will debut in 16 elementary schools across Idaho.”

Sources of Strength cultivates supportive relationships with adults and builds protective strengths in children, such as hope, persistence and the knowledge that it’s OK to ask for help.

The elementary Sources is designed for grades three through six, delivering social-emotional learning content “that focuses on the development of protective factors to help students better understand themselves, their strengths and their power to positively influence their world,” according to the Sources of Strength website.

The elementary curriculum, funded through the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant Program with additional funds from a federal grant, will go to these Kootenai County schools: Athol Elementary; Spirit Lake Elementary; Betty Kiefer, Garwood, John Brown and Twin Lakes elementary schools in Rathdrum; Winton Elementary in Coeur d’Alene; Atlas Elementary and Northwest Expedition Academy in Hayden; as well as schools in Meridian, Eagle, Boise, Blackfoot, Sugar City and in the Vallivue School District.

The $3.6 million, five-year grant will expand Idaho’s youth suicide prevention efforts to include trained behavioral health case managers in each region of the state and peer groups for survivors of suicide attempts. Ten additional schools will be added each year of the grant period.

Grant funds will support schools from Boundary County in the north to Power County in the south. Other schools in the Source of Strength cohort that will receive state funds through a subgrant from the Department of Health and Welfare include Forest M. Bird Charter School in Sandpoint, and St. Maries Middle School.

Sources of Strength has been established in 105 Idaho middle and high schools since the state implemented the peer-based youth suicide prevention project in 2013.