Pine Ridge Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Capacity Project - 1. Summary: Little Wound School Board, Inc., will lead a community-connected youth suicide prevention and early intervention project serving youth up to age 24 across Bennett, Jackson, and Oglala Lakota Counties in South Dakota. The project will build a coordinated system approach for suicide risk screening, response, referral, safety planning, follow-up, family support, and postvention across education, juvenile justice, and additional youth-serving systems. 2. Geographic Area: Bennett, Jackson, and Oglala Lakota Counties in South Dakota 3. Capacity to be Developed in Geographic Area: Our counties need increased capacity to identify youth suicide risk earlier, coordinate referral and follow-up across systems, and support youth and families after risk is identified. This grant will address those needs by building shared protocols, resources, and relationships that can be sustained beyond individual crisis events. 4. Population to Benefit from Capacity Building: Children 24 years or younger are the required beneficiaries of this program. To advance youth suicide prevention and response, the project will build capacity within the systems that serve and support them, including parents, families, community members, partner organizations, and aligned regional youth-serving organizations. Population to Benefit from Services: Children 24 years or younger who are identified as at risk for suicide or who may benefit from early intervention, referral, follow-up, family support, or prevention activities. Services will benefit a population with elevated levels of suicidal thoughts and behaviors along with high co-occcuring rates of suicide risk factors including high Adverse Childhood Experience scores, depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance use, family incarceration, parental separation or divorce, housing instability, child abuse, neglect, and household violence. Strategies and Interventions: Implementing Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale suicide risk screening across three systems; developing written risk identification, response, referral, follow-up, and postvention protocols; training youth-serving adults, peers, caregivers, clinicians, and community partners; providing family resources through printed packets, a resource website, home outreach, and partner-based distribution. The project will also strengthen prevention activities, referral pathways, safety planning, post-crisis follow-up, and weekly data tracking through a real-time dashboard to support coordinated implementation across partners. Project Goals: (1) Build a coordinated suicide risk identification, response, and postvention system across youth-serving settings. (2) Strengthen youth, family, peer, and community capacity to prevent suicide before crisis occurs. Measurable Objectives: We have seven measurable, goal-aligned objectives, plus one cross-cutting data and evaluation objective, that directly support SAMHSA priorities through: development of a suicide risk identification pathway across three youth-serving systems; implementation of a response protocol with safety planning, referral, and seven-day follow-up; creation of a postvention protocol; annual trainings for youth-serving adults, peers, caregivers, and partners; distribution of family resources; implementation of youth-facing prevention activities; and weekly data tracking to monitor progress toward all goals and objectives. Served: Across goals, objectives, and activities, we will serve 875 people per year. Over a five-year grant project period this is 4,375 people impacted by the program.
