Socorro County, Options, Prevention, and Education: Mental Health Advocacy and Suicide Prevention - Congressional Directed Spending FY24 - The Mental Health and Suicide Awareness Outreach is a collaborative project to bring awareness and education on a variety of mental health challenges residents of Socorro County face. Through training, presentations, and events, community members will learn about the importance of taking care of their mental health and what healthy coping techniques may work for them, how to recognize mental health crises, and where to get help. Socorro County encompasses of rural communities that lack access to mental health services. Community members, including the youth, are struggling with their mental health and may turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms or substances to help them deal with the challenges they face. According to the 2023 Strategies for Success survey, 39% of middle school students and 38% of high school students in Socorro County have reported feeling sad or hopeless in the past 12 months while 34.3% of middle school students and 29.2% of high school students have seriously considered or attempted suicide in the past 12 months. This survey also highlights how substance use and mental health challenges often co-exist. Students who indicated having mental health challenges or crises (feeling sad or hopeless, seriously considered suicide, or had attempted suicide) were more likely to report every kind of substance use compared to the entire sample of both high school and middle school students. Using substance to treat or cope with an underlying mental health condition tends to make the mental health condition worse and is a risk factor for suicide. Socorro County is also seeing similar issues within the adult population. According to the 2022 New Mexico Community Survey, 33% of Socorro County residents self-identified as having mental health problems or drug/alcohol problems in the past year while 14.5% met critical threshold for serious mental illness. The survey also highlighted that 10.6% of residents have had suicidal thoughts while 1.7% of residents had attempted suicide. While the lack of mental health providers and behavioral services is an issue that can’t be addressed in a short amount of time, organizations have to get creative on how they can help provide support in this community. By offering mental health training and awareness presentations, SCOPE and other organizations are giving community members tools and resources to help those in times of crisis. With mental health events and materials, we are helping families create mental health toolkits, empowering them to take charge of their mental health, and reducing the stigma around it . By providing a universal prevention strategy inclusive of community building events and youth outreach opportunities, SCOPE is able to build resilience in our community and provide lasting changes despite the short grant term.
