About Us

Mission

The Mid-Valley Suicide Prevention Coalition’s mission is to raise awareness about suicide prevention through targeted outreach and education. Outreach efforts focus on making suicide prevention an approachable topic for all ages through social media and community based interaction. The coalition provides education through evidence based trainings that are nationally recognized as best practices.

History

In response to data illustrating the growing need for suicide prevention efforts primarily among youth, Polk County established the Mid-Valley Suicide Prevention Coalition in 2015. Since that time, the coalition has grown from a single county effort to a regional coalition made up of more that 120 community partners representing local government, first responders, faith leaders, educators, medical providers, non-profit entities, community members, and those with lived experience. The coalition has established a training infrastructure that has supported more than 500 Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) trainings, and 12 Applied Suicide Intervention Skills (ASIST) trainings, giving evidence based suicide intervention tools to more than 10,500 people including both youth and adults. In addition to the training programs, the coalition has proven itself to be a leader in working with youth to develop safe suicide prevention messaging campaigns for their schools and communities. The videos accompanying these campaigns have been viewed more than 270,000 times across all social media platforms. The combination of community trainings and messaging campaigns have helped the coalition to create a shift in culture across our communities that encourages the promotion of mental health and suicide awareness. 

Funding

The coalition has been funded by grants through Salem Health, Siletz Tribe, and the Willamette MBA program. These grants and contributions from generous community partners have made it possible to offer evidence based suicide prevention trainings through Marion and Polk counties and provide safe messaging campaigns to schools and in the community.

Coalition Meetings

The Mid-Valley Suicide Prevention Coalition meets quarterly with more frequent sub-committee meetings. These meetings are open to the public and anyone with an interest in Suicide Prevention is welcome to join us. For information about when these meetings are happening, check our calendar.

Contact Us

If you are interested in staying up to date with the work the Coalition is doing, join our email list.