Two feathers hope for future GLS - two feathers hope for future will build on prior work to increase local suicide prevention and intervention capacity for tribal youth ages 10-24 in humboldt…

The Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded Two Feathers Native American Family Services $735,000 on September 30, 2026, under the Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance program (CFDA 93.532) to build suicide prevention and intervention capacity for tribal youth ages 10–24 in Humboldt County, California.

Two Feathers will strengthen referral processes, care coordination, and continuity of care through partnerships with Klamath Trinity Joint Unified School District, North Humboldt Union High School District, Humboldt Juvenile Services, and Humboldt Mobile Crisis. The project will increase screening of youth ages 10–24 within schools, juvenile justice, and crisis services using assessment tools including the Brief Safety Suicide Assessment, Patient Health Questionnaire–9, Depression Screener, CRAFFT substance screener, Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, and Counseling on Access to Lethal Means. Two Feathers will update suicide risk response protocols, train staff on revised processes to improve retention, provide educational resources and clinical services to families and caregivers, and deliver community events, a youth conference, social marketing, and partner training. The project applies a public health systems model addressing societal, community, relationship, and individual levels.

Performance period runs through September 29, 2031. Place of performance is McKinleyville, California. This is a Project Grant, a form of assistance.

Two feathers hope for future GLS - two feathers hope for future will build on prior work to increase local suicide prevention and intervention capacity for tribal youth ages 10-24 in humboldt county, california, by strengthening referral processes, care coordination, continuity of care, providing training, and creating system-level improvements in responses and intervention with local partners in order to reduce the impacts of suicide risk, attempts, and completions. Two feathers hope for future GLS project will evolve the local system for providing prevention, early intervention and treatment services in partnership with klamath trinity joint unified school district, north humboldt union high school district, humboldt juvenile services and humboldt mobile crisis. Hope for future will develop public health-based suicide prevention systems in humboldt county that address societal, community, relationship, and individual levels for tribal youth. The goals of this grant are to: 1) to decrease suicide by improving and increasing the numbers of youth ages 10-24 screened within schools, juvenile justice, and crisis services, 2) to improve suicide response and improve staff retention by updating suicide risk response protocols and train staff on these processes, 3) to improve community knowledge and support for families and caregivers of youth with risk or who have attempted suicide by providing educational resources, training, and clinical services, 4) to increase community-based suicide prevention, by providing community events, a youth conference, social marketing, and partner training. Two feathers will use a public health systems model that includes the following strategies and components: brief safety suicide assessment (bssa), patient health questionnaire (PHQ9), depression screener, car, relax, alone, forget, friends, trouble (crafft) substance screener, columbia suicide severity rating scale (cssr-s), counseling on access to lethal means (calm), be sensitive be brave (bsbb) training and signs of suicide (SOS) training in conjunction with trauma focused-cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT). Further, TF will provide prevention activities (social marketing, events, youth development activities), screenings, refer youth for treatment at its behavioral health clinic, and provide supportive resource to families. Concurrently, two feathers will revise, update, and train staff and community on suicide risk policies, procedures and protocols. The impact of this program will be measured by the required IPP measures, cross-site evaluation metrics, and local evaluation on increases in hope for the future and changes in knowledge, skills, and attitudes about suicide. Local evaluation will focus on training experience, community prevention programming, social media engagement, and annual conference feedback. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches will be used.