What the Golden Gate Is (Finally) Doing About Suicides

Community members of Amador County are implementing suicide trainings and community events to help intervene in crises and destigmatize talking about mental health. Using "leftover dollars from the state’s Proposition 63 millionaire tax," these efforts have resulted in community conversations and events such as suicide walks.

Nepal combined strict protected area management with community participation (including buffer zone revenue-sharing, community-based anti-poaching patrols, and prey base restoration) to nearly quadruple its wild tiger population from 121 (in 2010) to 429 (in 2026). Simultaneously, tiger-related human deaths reduced from 21 to 7 per year, despite the tigers' growing population.

Connecticut colleges are implementing QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) training to teach students how to recognize suicide warning signs, ask direct questions like "Are you thinking about suicide?" and connect peers to professional help. Since 2022, over 1,000 people have been trained through Connecticut Children's Youth Suicide Prevention Center alone, with hundreds more trained at individual campuses like Southern Connecticut State University.

In response to a wave of youth suicides, educators at Buffalo Hide Academy in the Blackfeet Nation are teaching about heavy metal to connect youth to a sense of community and catharsis through the music. The school also works in tandem with the Fire in the Mountains metal festival to give students opportunities to perform and to enjoy the live music with their peers, leaning on metal’s therapeutic benefits.

The Care Now Clinic, established by Behavioral Healthcare Partners of Central Ohio, offers early crisis intervention services for those ages 12 and up, helping bridge the care gap between emergency rooms and waiting to see a physician. The group also recently launched a mobile crisis unit to even further expand access to care. Research shows these models cost less, reduce emergency room visits and make handling chronic conditions more manageable.

Community groups like Swim For Charlie and Learn to Swim are teaching local youth to swim in an effort to promote water safety and combat high rates of drownings, particularly within low-income and minority communities. Since forming in 2020, Swim For Charlie has taught more than 2,100 second graders how to swim, while Learn to Swim served about 3,000 students across 48 schools just last year.

The Street Moves initiative in Sweden is pushing local communities to become the designers of their own streets’ layouts and look at urban planning through the lens of the “one-minute city.” Through a public-private partnership, residents in four sites in Stockholm can help determine how much street space is used for parking, outdoor dining, and children’s play spaces. The goal is to increase participation in the community, address climate resilience, and create a more livable city.

To address a shortage of personal protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic, community members have begun to take on the task of producing face masks for medical professionals. From sewing masks to creating face shields with a 3D printer at a local library, communities are organizing and organizations are partnering to, at least temporarily, solve the problem.

To help address domestic violence and intervene in crises such as suicide and addiction within Native American communities, a decades-old culture-based program offers workshops that "foster healing through embracing community and tradition." These Gathering of Native Americans programs, which are designed specifically with the audience in mind, focus on community members helping community members as a form of counseling.

Building connections between teenagers and their community is an important step in suicide prevention among youth. The CODY Project recruits adult and teenage volunteers to hold mental awareness training at 4-H club and other community meetings. The Project seeks to open up communication, working as a bridge between teens and community partners.