Yakama Nation Garrett Lee Smith Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention (GLS) program - Project Abstract: The Yakama Nation (YN) Garrett Lee Smith Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention (GLS) program will increase suicide prevention, early intervention, and treatment efforts for youth up to age 24. The geographic catchment area is Yakima County (YC), Washington, with a specific focus on the lands of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakama Nation. The GLS program will increase the tribe's capacity to provide universal (Tier 1) suicide prevention and coping skills programing in area schools, strengthen protective factors in YN youth/young adults at risk for suicide, improve the community's ability to identify, intervene and treat YN youth/young adults experiencing suicidal thoughts or behaviors, engage peers with suicide-centered lived experience in developing messaging and providing support, track and quickly respond to deaths by suicide, and strengthen the tribe's postvention response. The grant will achieve the following goals: 1) Decrease the risk of suicide (increase help seeking behavior) by teaching native youth, young adults, and their families to recognize when they need support. 2) Increase YN and area school districts capacity to provide Tier 1 bullying, substance abuse, violence, and suicide prevention interventions. 3) Increase Yakama Nation's youth-serving agencies, area school districts, and Yakama Nation Behavioral Health Services' (YNBHS) ability to identify, intervene, and refer native youth/young adults at risk for suicide. 4) Strengthen individual, relational, community, and societal protective factors in YN youth/young adults who are at-risk for suicide. 5) Increase access to culturally responsive mental health and suicide care for YN youth/young adults experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors and self-harm. 6) Strengthen YNBHS ability to provide post-suicide intervention services to family members, school and community members connected to native youth who have completed suicide. Over the course of the five-year grant, GLS staff will deliver Sources of Strength (SOS) training to 100 elementary students per year; train 200 youth-serving agency staff, behavioral health providers, school personnel and community members in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST); and train 100 youth-serving agency staff, behavioral health providers, school personnel, and community members in Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM). A therapist II will be hired to provide trauma-informed behavioral health services to 200 youth/ young adults. To address culture specific protective factors, the GLS program will hire two Native young people with suicide-centered lived experience to work as peer support specialists and one suicide prevention natural helper to facilitate Talking Circles, provide support for youth/young adults at risk for suicide, participate in community awareness and education events, and train community members on evidence-based, culturally relevant strategies to identify, intervene, and refer youth/young adults at risk for suicide.
