Youth Suicide Prevention

How to Help is a Friend is a peer to peer suicide prevention training, acknowledging that youth usually turn to their peers first when struggling with mental health. This program gives young people the tools they need to navigate difficult mental health conversations and find life-saving solutions. 

High school teens are engaged to become peer trainers for the How to Help a Friend suicide prevention training. We find that younger students pay closer attention to the message when it is being delivered from an older student than if it is being delivered by an adult. It is our goal to provide this training at least every two years to students in the valley with a shorter booster training in the middle years. In 2024, 12 high school students were trained and 1,658 middle school students received How to Help a Friend lessons. Both groups receive training on coping with stress and depression as well as suicide prevention to build awareness and intervention skills.

This program is currently being implemented in all Snoqualmie Valley Middle Schools.

In our schools (see list below), this program is a universal support for all students, school-wide. Through the #BeKindSV campaign, students learn and practice using behaviors that are rooted in kindness with one another, acknowledge when others have been kind, and are encouraged to celebrate kindness within the school.

Through the #BeKindSV campaign, adults (school staff and parents) reinforce behaviors that display kindness, acknowledge when these behaviors occur, and celebrate kindness within the school and the home.

This program is currently in all elementary schools in Snoqualmie Valley School District, with future plans to enter the Riverview School District.

In our community, this program lays the groundwork for kindness to be the foundation that we build off of to foster a more caring, helpful, and supportive community. Through the #BeKindSV campaign, our community (individuals, families, and organizations) receive reminders to make kindness a priority, engage in community-wide activities and events like city festivals that supports this campaign, and acknowledge community kindness-in-action. Additionally, all across Snoqualmie Valley, we celebrate November as Kindness Month through proclamations, pledges, and a movie at the North Bend Theatre. Last year 138 people showed up to watch Charlotte’s Web with us!