The Weld Trust recently awarded a $100,000 grant to North Range Behavioral Health for support of the Suicide Education and Support Services (SESS) program. This program provides both education about the risk of suicide as well as resources such as gun locks to help protect against suicide in a moment of crisis.
The SESS team uses a national-based curriculum called QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) that they present to individuals 18 and older at no cost about the myths, facts, signs and symptoms of an individual in crisis and what they can do to prevent a suicide.
For the youth in Weld County, SESS is presenting SafeTeen to many schools across the county with a large focus on 9th and 10th graders. This presentation teaches students how to identify a trusted adult in their life and how to better understand mental health.
“We will always meet the community where they are at,” stated North Range Behavioral Health Program Coordinator Elisa Selby. “We provide trainings and referrals as well as connect people in need to other resources in the community.”
With these education platforms Selby said they are also normalizing the mental health conversations and breaking down the stigma, which is one of the biggest barriers to seeking help.
The Weld Trust grant award was also used to support access to safe space resources. This includes medicine and gun locks available to community members at no cost.
“If you put 10 minutes between an initial thought and access to those means, there is a 50% increase in survival rate,” Selby said. “We want to remove as many barriers as we can. We want to offer no-cost items to the community to increase access to these valuable safe space resources.”
The Weld Trust has granted nearly $300,000 in support of suicide prevention resources in the past three years. To learn more about these and other grants awarded by The Weld Trust, visit weldtrust.org/grant-database. For more information on all the services North Range Behavioral Health, offers or to request a safe space resource visit northrange.org.
