Happy new year to you, our wonderful partners and fellow youth suicide prevention advocates!

January 14, 2020

With the start of 2020, we’re already halfway through the school year. What a great time to pause and share some of the work your partnership has made possible thus far, and what more we have planned.

Since July, your support for the SOS program has helped…

• 198 new schools across the country adopt SOS (with 34% of all new programs fulfilled by your support)

• 249 schools renew SOS (32% of total renewals)

• Fund scholarships for schools that otherwise would not be able to offer SOS

We couldn’t be prouder of this and the additional achievements below.

SOS Accomplishments

In the past six months, we’ve accomplished projects big and small to provide a better, more relevant program for youth and more user-friendly resources for facilitators, such as:

BRAND NEW Middle and High School Videos

We are so proud of the new first year and refresher year videos that we filmed last summer. They include dramatic scenes, expert interviews, youth roundtable conversations around contemporary topics, and personal accounts of mental health struggles with stories of hope from young adults.

Updated Resources for Facilitators 

We’ve crafted new planning and facilitator guides, added more lesson plans, revised materials for students and parents, and updated the training materials for all key stakeholder groups

Public Parent Page 

Parent web page, resources, and a new video featuring a young woman and her parents who shared their story of her mental health struggle, are now available to the public on an open webpage, for ease of access and sharing.

More Resources for Users 

We now offer a webinar series (more on that below), share monthly program updates, provide helpful videos on common SOS questions, and have expanded the troubleshooting guides.

New Projects

We are inspired by these achievements and will continue to push forward on exciting new projects like:

Creating NEW Video Refresher Content

New content will be developed using all the wonderful new footage we captured last summer, giving middle and high schools two years of refresher content – 75% of which is brand new material.

Moving the SOS Program and Materials onto a Learning Management Platform

This will significantly increase efficiencies and ease of use for schools and facilitators.

Developing Online Teacher Training

This will be done in collaboration with our partners at the Riverside Trauma Center to address the need created by the increasing number of states mandating two hours of teacher training in behavioral health and youth suicide prevention.

Enhancing the SOS Prevention Curriculum

We’ll be combining the SOS prevention curriculum with the amazing suicide intervention and postvention services that our Trauma Center colleagues already deliver to and support in schools. Communicating this comprehensive offering more clearly will ensure schools and youth service providers are aware of them, and allow them to engage our experts along the entire spectrum of youth suicide prevention.

The Difference You’ve Made

We are inspired and energetic as we continue to develop and deliver products that will make it easier to teach youth suicide prevention to young folks and interested adults. We truly could not achieve this without your support.

Please acknowledge what a difference you have made, through your dedication and support.

We do, and are grateful for you, on a daily basis.

Kara Neymeyr, MPA
Signs of Suicide Program Director
MindWise Innovations