AGENDA

Description:

Why We Didn’t Tell You was created by individuals with lived experience of suicidal thoughts and centers the perspectives of suicide attempt survivors to enhance health system knowledge and clinical practice. Presenters share lived experiences to illuminate emotional, interpersonal, and systemic barriers that often prevent help-seeking, while challenging risk-focused approaches that may discourage disclosure.

Integrating peer-reviewed research, survey findings, and personal narratives, the session explores why individuals experiencing suicidality hesitate to reach out and identifies strategies to foster openness, trust, and engagement in care. Grounded in CBT, DBT, and Solution-Focused frameworks, presenters review approaches to assessing suicidal ideation and managing crises without defaulting to hospitalization.

Participants receive guidance on using assessment tools while maintaining a compassionate, collaborative connection. Interactive discussion, applied activities, and a question-and-answer session provide practical, immediately applicable insights for clinicians, loved ones, and individuals with lived experience.

This session explores youth mental health and suicide prevention through the lens of digital wellness. It focuses on Youth Risk Behavior Survey data from Alaska high school students to highlight mental health trends and the role of protective factors like supportive relationships. We also examine how social media and digital habits impact youth well-being. Youth input from YAHA’s 2024 Digital Wellness Harvest is also shared to highlight what young people need from adults and schools. The session ends with practical prevention strategies for teens, parents, educators, and communities, as well as simple coping tools like building healthy night routines.

Description:

Participants will learn about the Signs of Suicide program, including what is required to implement and present the program in schools. The presentation will cover student and presenter perspectives, highlighting what has been effective as well as challenges encountered during delivery. Signs of Suicide is an evidence-based program used with middle and high school students, and the session will also briefly address the parent and caregiver version, which focuses on how adults can support youth who may be concerned about themselves or a peer. In addition, the presentation will provide a brief overview of other successful youth prevention programs, including Why I Stay, Social Emotional Health Education, and a Lived Experience Panel.

Description:

Exploring different communications tactics to reach disparate populations across Alaska with 988 messaging to youth and adults. We will review the process of creating culturally competent communications tools as well as media placement options. We will also share communications materials created that can be utilized throughout Alaska to help increase utilization of 988.

Description:

This presentation explores effective strategies for suicide prevention and follow-up care in rural Alaska communities. Participants will learn about culturally informed approaches, the role of the Suicide Care Pathway, and practical tools for supporting individuals at risk. Emphasis will be placed on collaboration with local health aides, community members, and behavioral health teams to create a network of safer, responsive care. Attendees will gain insights into implementing sustainable practices that strengthen support systems and reduce suicide risk across Alaska’s unique and diverse communities.

Description:

This presentation will cover: (1) a brief introduction to artificial intelligence (AI); (2) current trends in the use of AI in mental health care, with a focus on suicide prevention; (3) potential applications of AI for suicide prevention among Alaskan youth; (4) benefits, limitations, and ethical considerations of using AI in Alaska’s unique geographic and cultural context; and (5) demonstration of a prototype chatbot designed to identify risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors and to facilitate connection to human support.

Description:

This presentation will share findings from outreach to each region in Alaska to better understand suicide prevention statewide. Through conversations with regional organizations, this project’s goals are to determine region-specific risk and protective factors, examine what kinds of initiatives are showing positive impacts, identify gaps in prevention, and understand how policy impacts prevention. By analyzing regional findings, we can build on what is working and expand efforts across Alaska. This session will synthesize key themes and takeaways from this research. Additionally, this presentation will introduce an interactive GIS-based resource map currently in development that will display suicide prevention, behavioral health, and wellness resources in each region. The purpose is to be an easily accessible tool, especially for youth, that visually displays what programs exist and where they're located. By making resources more tangible and easier to navigate, the map aims to help individuals take the first steps towards help.

Description:

Suicide prevention requires a coordinated response across multiple systems and settings that influence health, well-being, and connectedness. This session highlights the importance of integrating suicide prevention into the places where people live, work, and play by embedding protective practices within everyday environments and routines. Drawing on lessons from a national, multi-session community of practice led by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), the session will use practical examples to showcase how suicide prevention can be incorporated into existing programs, policies, and activities across sectors such as education, workforce, health care, and community organizations. The session will explore how factors such as social connection, access to services, safe environments, and exposure to stress influence suicide risk and protective factors. Attendees will learn how to align policies, programs, and partnerships to strengthen collaboration and embed prevention into existing systems and will leave with actionable strategies to advance comprehensive suicide prevention efforts.

Albert holds an MSW in community-centered integrative practice from the University of Washington and a BA in health and psychology from the University of Michigan. This multidisciplinary background has allowed her to develop a unique lens for approaching projects that is deeply rooted in community care. Sommer currently works as part of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center’s State and Territorial Initiatives team.

Description:

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 5 youth seriously considered suicide and nearly 1 in 10 made a suicide attempt in the previous year (Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023). American Indian/Alaskan Native youth experience the highest rates of suicide of any racial or ethnic group.

This presentation explores evidenced-based strategies, such as screening and safety planning, and how these interventions can be integrated into community settings, including healthcare and schools. Drawing on our work with Zero Suicide and Multi-tiered Suicide Prevention in Schools, we will also highlight resources that promote protective factors and can be incorporated into youth-serving systems, as well supportive resources for parents/caregivers.

Description:

This presentation shares a community-based suicide prevention model developed in Puerto Rico to address emotional silence, stigma, and social isolation among men. The program uses structured group dialogue, peer learning, and practical emotional literacy tools to strengthen resilience and help-seeking behaviors. Implemented in community settings with adult men, the model creates safe spaces for discussing loss, stress, and purpose, while equipping participants with skills to recognize distress in themselves and others. Participants reported increased emotional openness, stronger social connections, and greater willingness to support peers in crisis. The session will highlight transferable strategies that can support frontline workers in rural and underserved communities, including engagement approaches for men reluctant to access services, facilitation tools for building trust, and methods to integrate resilience-focused conversations into community programs. The presentation emphasizes hope, collective care, and culturally responsive approaches to suicide prevention that can be adapted across diverse populations.

Description:

This presentation provides an overview of a 7-year National Institutes of Health funded community-based research project that focused on the identification of community level strengths that prevent suicide in Northwest Arctic, Bering Strait, and Yukon-Kuskokwim regions of Alaska. From what was learned from community driven surveys, interviews, and young people’s digital stories, we emphasize the importance of community health in the promotion of young people’s wellbeing. Communities that have good governance, provide youth opportunities, support social connections, and celebrate cultural traditions and spirituality have the lowest rates of suicide. We will provide tangible recommendations for ways to put this knowledge to practice and highlight potential partnership opportunities moving forward.

Description:

This presentation examines how inviting critical self-reflection, known as reflexivity, shaped a virtual suicide prevention training for predominantly non-Native school staff working with Alaska Native students. The training, PC CARES (Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide) at School, was implemented in collaboration with three school districts in remote Alaska through a series of sequential Learning Circles (LCs) held from 2021 to 2022. The intervention integrated "anti-racist shifts," teaching practices designed to prompt reflexivity. Drawing from lived experience and community expertise, the PC CARES facilitation team, a diverse group of both AN and non-Native facilitators, co-created learning environments with participants, making efforts to challenge white supremacy culture by embedding one “anti-racist shift” into each LC. This talk discusses how participants demonstrated reflexivity around local suicide prevention and indicated motivation for community care, collective action, and decolonial health promotion, laying the groundwork for culturally-responsive and decolonial suicide prevention efforts.

AND

The single most effective way to prevent suicide is to make sure youth or anyone at risk cannot easily get access to a loaded gun. Most families in Alaska have firearms, and school staff can play a vital role in noticing a need for mental health support and communicating options for safety. This session offers participants resources and information to practice how to respectfully engage with adult family members and community leaders to promote safe storage of firearms when concerned about a student’s mental health struggles, connection with someone who died by suicide, or some other indication of a student’s elevated suicide risk. The session will also share insights from school staff from Anchorage School District and school employees across the state as they received and applied techniques for talking to families about keeping their loved ones safe.

Description:
During this presentation, the Blueprint for Youth Suicide Prevention with be introduced and thoroughly discussed with the audience during this presentation.
https://www.aap.org/suicideprevention

Description:
After surviving a suicide attempt in adolescence and undergoing years of complex medical treatment, I faced significant mental and physical health challenges. In 2014, I began running as a tool to cope with my struggles, starting with a two-mile goal that took a year of consistency to achieve. Over time, incremental goals led to endurance racing and ultramarathons of 100 miles and beyond, including multiple efforts before successfully completing the distances. Drawing from these experiences, this talk focuses on resilience, goal setting, and the importance of continuing forward through setbacks. The message emphasizes how sustained effort and perseverance can lead to meaningful mental and physical transformation. I provide videos and photos of my journey to help audiences visualize and connect with my achievements.