Partners in Youth Suicide Prevention

Supporting Youth Mental Health in North Central Indiana

North Central Health Services (NCHS) is committed to providing healthcare and promoting healthy communities for the benefit of citizens in Benton, Carroll, Clinton, Fountain, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Warren, and White counties.  Since 1999, NCHS has awarded over $100 million in grant funding through over 675 grants to more than 225 different organizations in the NCHS service area.

NCHS is announcing an opportunity for K12 Youth Serving Organizations in North Central Indiana to receive training, support, and resources focused on system-level, youth mental health promotion and suicide prevention through the Partners in Youth Suicide Prevention (PYSP) initiative. NCHS is partnering with the Education Development Center (EDC) to provide an opportunity for organizations to learn the knowledge, skills, and best practices needed to integrate suicide prevention within their daily practices.  A core focus of PYSP will include linking ongoing life skill development and youth wellness initiatives with long-term suicide prevention outcomes. Participating organizations will receive a small grant of $5,000 in calendar year 2026 to support the implementation of PYSP in their organizations.

Nineteen school corporations in the Greater Lafayette region have previously joined NCHS and EDC to participate in the Preventing Youth Suicide Initiative (PYSI) focused on mental health and suicide prevention within school systems. Due to PYSI’s success and impact in preparing schools to prevent youth suicide, NCHS is seeking to engage a minimum of 5 K12 youth-serving organizations committed to expanding this work to youths’ out-of-school time.

NCHS will provide full funding for this opportunity and EDC will provide training and systems-level support to help K12 youth-serving organizations build robust, evidence-based suicide prevention efforts. These efforts may include the creation of suicide prevention and ‘after a suicide death’ protocols, organization investment in understanding suicide risk and how to intervene and support those at risk for suicide, and/or strategies to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for suicide through ongoing K12 youth wellness and life skill development efforts. Small grants for $5,000 will be provided directly to K12 youth-serving organizations to support their rollout of PYSP. 

Background

Suicide risk in youth ages 6-19 has increased significantly in the past 17 years with Indiana youth suicide rates outpacing national youth suicide rates (Figure 1)¹. Post the COVID-19 pandemic, small decreases in national youth suicide rates were observed; however, these rates have increased once again and still remain significantly above youth suicide rates in the early 2000s.^1,2 While young-youth suicides remain rare, the suicide rate for children ages 6-11 has increased 81% during this time period.³ In the 2022 Indiana Youth Survey (IYS), 36 percent of Indiana 6-12^th grade students reported feeling sad or hopeless in the past year, 17 percent reported considering attempting suicide, and twelve percent reported making a suicide plan^3.  These rates are similar to the 2020 IYS outcomes^4,5.

Suicide Rates (Per 100,000) Youth Ages 6-19, 2006-2021

View Graph Data

Year	United States Suicide Rate (Per 100,000) of Youth Ages 6-19	Indiana Suicide Rate (Per 100,000) of Youth Ages 6-19
2006	3.04	3.23
2007	2.84	3.28
2008	3.1	3.89
2009	3.28	3.58
2010	3.28	3.35
2011	3.56	3.76
2012	3.59	4.66
2013	3.68	4.19
2014	3.89	4.12
2015	4.25	4.3
2016	4.4	4.55
2017	5.18	5.75
2018	5.17	6.71
2019	4.75	3.84
2020	4.73	6.47
2021	4.97	6.47

In Indiana, suicide is the 3^rd leading cause for death for youth ages 6-19 behind only unintentional injuries and homicides⁶.

Several factors may increase a young person’s risk for suicide, including mental health disorders and substance use, prior suicide attempts, challenges in executive functioning, access to lethal means, and adverse childhood experiences, including family conflict and violence⁷. Protective factors that can buffer against these risks include life skills; positive connections to peers, trusted adults, and school systems; and family and school engagement⁸.

What does research tell us about how we can work to prevent youth suicide?

• While every suicide cannot be stopped, suicide is preventable
• All community members can learn the warning signs of suicide and understand their unique roles in supporting youth who are at risk for suicide^9,10
• Suicide prevention protocols can guide the community in responding effectively to suicide risk and deaths by suicide and ensuring youth receive needed support
• Implementing a variety of prevention strategies (a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention) has been shown to reduce youth suicide rates¹¹
• Organizations can invest in youth life skills development and create environments which reduce risk factors and increase protective factors for suicide¹²
• Community-wide investment in prevention activities across sectors and settings increases effectiveness of youth-focused suicide prevention efforts^13,14,15

What is Partners in Youth Suicide Prevention?

EDC is focused on integrating mental health and suicide prevention within organizations’ daily practices to ensure that communities can more effectively prevent suicide. This systemwide approach includes investments in youth life skill development, addressing risk and protective factors for suicide, the development of protocols to guide staff actions when responding to suicide risk and crisis, and ongoing collaboration with community partners (see Figure 2). These key strategies for systemwide suicide prevention have been adapted from EDC’s Multi-Tiered Suicide Prevention for Schools framework for out-of-school settings. Drawing from current research, best practices in community-level suicide prevention, and real-world implementation of MTSP through the PYSI initiative,  EDC and NCHS seek to support K12 youth-serving organizations in coordinating and aligning their youth suicide prevention efforts with local schools and creating community-wide safety nets that better prevent suicide and promote youths’ overall wellbeing.^{11,12,13,14,15}

This initiative will guide participating organizations through training, preparation, and implementation of best practice, youth wellbeing promotion and suicide prevention strategies from April 2026 – December 2026.  K12 Youth serving organizations will first join NCHS and EDC for an in-person train-the-trainer in the Spring of 2026 (exact date TBD based on participants’ availability). At this training, participants will receive access to a new PYSP Toolkit and be trained on how to roll out the toolkit contents and implement ongoing professional development, implementation, and continuous quality improvement within their organizations. Following the in-person training, all K12 youth-serving organizations will receive ongoing technical assistance and support from EDC, resources, peer-learning opportunities, and best practice guidance on developing and/or updating policies and protocols for suicide risk and implementing suicide prevention strategies within their daily practices. Aspects of continuous quality improvement, such as identifying progress measures, and collecting and applying data to show long-term impact on suicide, will be included in the technical assistance. Details on the time commitment required for PYSP implementation, in-person training, and ongoing technical assistance are provided below. Figure 3 provides an overview of the stages of PYSP implementation.

NCHS Grant Opportunity Eligibility and Expectations

NCHS is offering K12 youth serving organizations in North Central Indiana a grant opportunity that will include technical assistance; toolkit delivery and training; and planning, implementing, and sustaining suicide prevention efforts. Organizations directly serving K12 youth through out-of-school services in North Central Indiana are invited to apply. Organizations must have two years of financial history and financial statements, be a registered 501C3s, Faith Institutions, Foundations, or Extension Offices and physically located in Benton, Carroll, Clinton, Fountain, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Warren, and/or White County to apply. School corporations are not eligible to apply. Organizations physically located outside of North Central Indiana are not eligible to apply. Organizations partnering with schools formerly or currently engaged in the PYSI grant program funded by NCHS are encouraged to coordinate with schools on their PYSP toolkit implementation. NCHS must receive a minimum of five quality applications to launch the Initiative.

Grant Resources

• Grant Application 
• Grant Frequently Asked Questions

Contact

Please direct questions about the initiative to Michelle Kreinbrook, Director of Community Benefit and Outreach at [email protected] or 765-423-1604.

References

1. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (July 2025). WISQARS fatal injury data. CDC.
2. Curtin, S. C., Garnett, M. F., & Ahmad, F. B. (2023). Provisional Estimates of Suicide by Demographic Characteristics: United States, 2022. CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr034.pdf
3. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (July 2025). WISQARS fatal injury data. CDC.
4. Jun, M., Gassman, R., Agley, J. D., Samuel, S., & Lee, J (2022). Indiana Youth Survey – 2022. Bloomington, IN: Prevention Insights.
5. Jun, M., Gassman, R., Agley, J. D., King, R., Samuel, S., & Lee, J (2020). Indiana Youth Survey – 2020.Bloomington, IN: Institute for Research on Addictive Behavior
6. WISQARS (July 2025). Fatal injury data visualization tool. CDC. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/explore-data/home  
7. Bilsen, J. (2018). Suicide and Youth: Risk Factors. Front Psychiatry, 9:540. doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00540
8. Janiri, D., Doucet, G.E., Pompili, M., Sani, G., Luna, B., Brent, D.A., Frangou, S. (2020). Risk and protective factors for childhood suicidality: A US population-based study. Lancet Psychiatry, 7(4): 317-326. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2FS2215-0366(20)30049-3
9. Gryglewicz, K., Garrison, C. M. T., Childs, K. K., Labouliere, C. D., & Karver, M. S. (2024). Examining individual and service delivery context variables and their association with the effectiveness of QPR suicide prevention gatekeeper training. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 51(1), 47-59.
10. Haddad, K., Lindquist-Grantz, R., Vilvens, H., Jacquez, F., & Vaughn, L. (2020). Empowering youth to build BRIDGES: Youth leadership in suicide prevention. Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and   Practice, 3(1).
11. Godoy Garraza, L., Kuiper, N., Goldston, D., McKeon, R., & Walrath, C. (2019). Long-term impact of the Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention Program on youth suicide mortality, 2006-2015. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 60(10), 1142–1147. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13058  
12. Morris‐Perez, P., Abenavoli, R., Benzekri, A., Rosenbach‐Jordan, S., & Boccieri, G. R. (2023). Preventing adolescent suicide: Recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, program developers, and researchers. Social Policy Report, 36(3).
13. Menger, L. M., Stallones, L., Cross, J. E., Henry, K. L., & Chen, P. Y. (2015). Strengthening suicide prevention networks: Interorganizational collaboration and tie strength. Psychosocial Intervention, 24(3), 155-165.
14. Cooper, S. L., Lezotte, D., Jacobellis, J., & DiGuiseppi, C. (2006). Does availability of mental health resources prevent recurrent suicidal behavior? An ecological analysis. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 36(4), 409  -417.
15. Grattidge, L., Hoang, H., Mond, J., Visentin, D., Lees, D., & Auckland, S. (2025). The Community's Role in Rural Youth Suicide Prevention: Perspectives From the Field. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 33(2), e70024.