Retreat to educate students on suicide prevention

TYLER – Our news partner, KETK, reports that the fourth annual “Sources of Strength” Retreat is expected to host over 200 students from 11 different high schools from all over East Texas this week.

Next Step Community Solutions, a Texas-based nonprofit, will host this retreat on Wednesday at the W.T. Brookshire Conference Center in Tyler. Sources of Strength is a peer-led suicide prevention program. The evidence-based conference-style retreat will feature different groups and adult leaders that will rotate through sessions.

“Each year we are able to bring more students together and celebrate all that they’ve accomplished over the past school year while also teaching them new ways to grow,” Sources of Strength program manager Adriana Gonzalez said.

“We’re really excited to bring a resource fair of mental health and community resources from local non-profits and organizations to the retreat this year, so our students can be connectors to help,” Gonzalez said.

Each session will include techniques for breathing and meditation, along with new ways to support each other through stressful times. A yoga class will be led by instructor Colleen Long, program manager for Youth Yoga Lab. Vendors featured will be non-profits and organizations from around East Texas.

The benefits of the Sources of Strength program were featured in the CDC’s 2017 Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices “researchers found that the program improved adaptive norms regarding suicide, connectedness to adults and school engagement. For students, the program resulted in increased perceptions of adult support for suicidal youths, particularly among those with a history of suicidal ideation and the acceptability of help-seeking behaviors.”

Students from several East Texas high schools will be featured at the retreat including Athens High School, Brownsboro High School, Daingerfield High School, Henderson High School, Kilgore High School, Spring Hill High School, Early College High School, Tyler High School, Tyler Legacy High School, Whitehouse High School and Winona High School.

To learn more about the program, visit Next Step Community Solutions online.