Work Continues for Suicide Prevention: "Sources of Strength" Seminar Held at Red Lake

About 30 youth and adults participated in the "Sources of Strength Seminar" held at the Red Lake last month. Participants included staff from the Families and Children Programs, Chemical Health Programs, and schools. But the seminar was geared to the training of students attending from Red Lake High School and Middle School.

Sources of Strength is a strength-based comprehensive wellness program that focuses on suicide prevention but impacts other issues such as substance abuse and violence. The program is based on a relational connections model that uses teams of peer leaders mentored by adult advisors to change peer social norms about help seeking and encourages students to individually assess and develop strengths in their life.

"Sources of Strength is most often implemented as a school-based program in middle school, high school, or college," explained Mark LoMurray Founder and Executive Director. "However Sources of Strength is also often used in community, faith-based, and cultural settings. It promotes and focuses on connectivity, school bonding, peer-adult partnerships, and help seeking behaviors."

Youth at the seminar began the process to become trained peer leaders and then use their network of friends to:

• Have one-on-one conversations.

• Develop a Hope, Help, Strength poster and/or PSA program using local faces and voices.

• Present peer to peer presentations.

• Develop video, internet, or texting messages.

The program is often initiated as 3-6 month project, but is designed as a multi-year project with ongoing peer messaging and contacts growing over time.

Program staff at the seminar who will become adult advisors were told by LoMurray that they can expect to spend approximately 40 hours over a 3-6 month program. This includes the 4-5 hour orientation training that took place this day, and brief monthly teleconference support meetings with Sources of Strength staff. But most of this time is spent supporting the peer teams. Peer (youth) leaders spend from 15-50 hours over a 3-6 month program, including the four-hour initial peer training held.

What's Next? LoMurray explained that this was only the beginning of building a coalition of students, social service providers, schools, churches and community members.

• Awareness and Buy-In - This often includes training of a community/coalition on Sources of Strength, obtaining key administrative support and conducting a brief protocol review of handling distressed/suicidal students.

• Identify and train adult advisors – Identify 2-5 adult advisors that will mentor a peer leader team. Train adult advisors in the Sources of Strength process in peer leader recruitment and their role in meeting and guiding peer teams during the action step phase. Adult advisors can be school counselors, teachers, youth workers, pastors/spiritual leaders, friendly aunties and often are a mix of school staff and community adults that have high relational connectivity with students.

• Recruit and Train Peer Leaders – Peer leader teams are often between 10-50 students in size. The initial peer leader training held at Red Lake is provided by a certified Sources of Strength trainer in a 3-4 hour highly interactive training process. It is mandatory that the local adult advisors participate in this peer leader training.

• Peer to Peer Contacts and Messaging – After the initial training held in May, the peer leaders and adult advisors begin a 3-6 month series of conversations with other trusted adults and their 5-10 closest friends as well as create a wide range of Hope, Help, Strength messaging activities targeting a wider and diverse peer group. Sources of Strength provides a recommended step by step guide of peer leader activities but teams are able to adjust based on their readiness level and perception of what will work best in their setting.

• Ongoing Support and Technical Assistance – Sources of Strength staff provides monthly teleconference support as well as planning materials and resources for each step of the way.

Sources of Strength has expanded into many tribal settings.

Tribal communities, have been long-term partners of Sources of Strength. There have been a wide range of adaptations of Sources of Strength blended with local tribal traditions of wellness and strength.

• School-based programs developing peer leaders mixed with traditional stories from elders, teaching of traditional language, art, crafts, etc. In one training Sources of Strength blended with an elder teaching the use of four sacred plants (cedar, sweetgrass, tobacco, and sage) that are traditional gifts of healing and strength.

• Mixing Sources of Strength into Boys and Girls club programs, Culture Camps, Young Life, and other cultural, community, and faith-based groups.

• The National Native American Mentoring Project via Boys and Girls Club has used Sources of Strength in their annual training of mentoring coordinators.

Sources of Strength was originally developed in the late 1990’s by founder Mark LoMurray with tribal and rural suicide prevention partners in North Dakota. From 2000-2004 the program was used extensively in a statewide campaign through the North Dakota Adolescent Suicide Prevention Project with encouraging reductions. The project showed very encouraging reductions of teen fatalities and reductions in three of four suicide markers in North Dakota’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

The Sources of Strength program is a comprehensive wellness program that works to use peer leaders to change norms around codes of silence and help seeking. The program is designed to increase help seeking behaviors and connections between peers (youth) and caring adults. Sources of Strength has a true preventative aim in building multiple sources of support around individuals so that when times get hard they have strengths to rely on.

The Sources of Strength Vision: (From their Website)

We lead in the field of suicide prevention by respecting differences in individuals, communities and cultures and by drawing out stories of strength and healing. Many strengths are more powerful than one, and our united goal is to activate and mobilize these strengths in ways that positively change individuals and communities

Core Principals:

• Train both peer leaders and adults – one without the other lacks prevention power

• Use peer leaders to break down codes of silence and increase peer help seeking

• Core emphasis on strengths that move beyond a singular focus on risk and suicide warnings

• Multiple sources of support are encouraged – including but moving beyond a singular focus on mental health referrals

• Hope, Help, and Strength messages delivered by peer leaders using local faces and voices

Goals of Sources of Strength:

To Increase:

• Overall adult-youth connectedness and bonding

• Youth help seeking from trusted adults

• Referrals of distressed peers to supportive adults

• Coping skills and health promotion of youth based on Sources of Strength protective factors

• Peer leaders knowledge of suicide prevention and how to help emotionally distressed or suicidal peers

To Decrease:

• Codes of silence among peer leaders and social networks

• Stigma surrounding suicide and mental illness

• Isolation and a lack of trust in adults

• To decrease injuries and self harm related to suicide, substance abuse and violence