Colorado's Initiative to Prevent Suicide

Colorado's suicide rate is currently the 6th highest rate among the 50 states and has persistently ranged from 40% to 50% above the national US rate. During the last 10 years Mental Health America of Colorado, the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado, local foundations and the Office of Suicide Prevention have worked to address this public health problem. This session presents a statewide perspective by describing an overview of recent efforts and the direction of future efforts in Colorado. Because Colorado seeks to reduce both the high death by suicide rate and the many suicide attempts, suicide prevention stresses the need and skills to engage persons at-risk of suicide in mental health treatment – frequently public mental treatment in community mental health centers and schools. Funded by both the Office of Suicide Prevention and local foundations, Colorado's suicide prevention efforts have included many community planning and activities across the state. Community projects were provided technical assistance to facilitate stakeholder collaboration and sustainability by the University of Colorado, Denver. Funded by the Colorado Trust and using the experiences of the community projects, stakeholders across Colorado updated the state suicide prevention plan ten years subsequent to the 1st Colorado Suicide Prevention Plan. Copies of the 2009 plan, Preventing Suicide in Colorado: Progress Achieved and Goals for the Future, will be available and its details highlighted in the second paper. To illustrate concrete efforts to implement aspects of the state plan, examples of project activities will be described in the later two papers.