South dakota

The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act for youth suicide prevention in South Dakoa - also known as the the Suicide Awareness Partnership program has three primary goals: 1) Increase knowledge of suicidality, including how to refer at-risk individuals; 2) conduct a suicide prevention public awareness campaign; 3) assure effective linkages among schools, mental health and substance abuse services.

Over the past three years, WICHE has conducted local evaluations relative to activities of the Youth Suicide Prevention and Intervention Grant.

Two levels of data related to goals and objectives of the project have been collected. The first level regards process and outcomes of the specific goals, strategies, and objectives of this project. The second level includes process and outcomes for the project as a whole, partly based on the first level analyses. Process measures have focused primarily on the strategies, i.e., methods, by which objectives have been achieved, whereas outcome measures have focused on the achievement of objectives. Process measures, while quantifiable, have also been composed of qualitative questions that ask participants, especially family members, staff, and students, how effective the training methods and results were, as well as suggestions for improvement. Outcome measures will be mostly quantitative in nature. We have used an evaluation design that includes a participatory evaluation orientation. This orientation integrates and coordinates stakeholder participation in evaluation activities at every level. Trainings and consumer input will help system developers and evaluators recognize quality assurance needs, and a results-oriented data management system at each level of the system will produce continuous feedback on program effects. Additionally, pilot communities will be compared to similar but non-project areas to determine differences in patterns of calls to the crisis line, as well as referral sources, patterns, and reasons for referral based on CMHC and crisis line records.