Suicide Prevention

_{Please note: If you think you may have a medical or life-threatening behavioral health emergency or your condition becomes life-threatening, please call 911 or go to the nearest hospital immediately. For all other behavioral health crises, call or text the 988 Hotline.}

Available Grants

Garrett Lee Smith Grant

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has awarded the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental & Intellectual Disorders (DBHDID) the 2022 Garrett Lee Smith State Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention Grant (GLS grant). Through this funding, Kentucky will support the implementation of evidence-based prevention and early intervention strategies in youth serving agencies (YSAs) to:

• Increase the number of youth-serving organizations who are able to identify and work with youth at risk of suicide;
• Increase the capacity of clinical service providers to assess, manage, and treat youth at risk of suicide; 
• Improve the continuity of care and follow-up of youth identified to be at risk for suicide, including those who have been discharged from emergency department and inpatient psychiatric units.

The University of Louisville Center for Instructional and Behavioral Research in Schools (CIBRS) will provide technical assistance to state and regional agencies and four targeted local education agencies (LEAs). Technical Assistance will include the following:

• Facilitate a community of learning around policy and procedure related to suicide prevention, including the implementation of CODE RED in pilot schools with youth;
• Build capacity among educational cooperatives’ implementation specialists to deliver suicide prevention, intervention and postvention activities;
• Provide on-site and virtual implementation support to four pilot districts, in collaboration with Kentucky Regional Prevention Centers, in assessing their school policies in regards to suicide prevention and the CODE RED universal safety planning process; 
• Create materials to support the delivery of youth suicide prevention activities to students and translate lessons learned to future cohorts of schools and their community YSAs.  

CIBRS will be producing a technical package that will be available to all Kentucky school districts and will support sustainability of the project and continued delivery of youth suicide prevention policies, procedures and activities beyond the life of the grant. Below are the DBHDID partners on this project.