In October 2006, Kentucky was awarded a three-year grant from SAMHSA under the Garrett Lee Smith Act.

The purpose of the KY Suicide Prevention is to raise awareness, enhance quality interventions, and utilize effective research and data collection methodologies to ultimately reduce the number of suicides completed by the youth in KY.

SAMSHA uses a public health model of prevention with universal, selective and
indicated approaches to address the following goals:

1. Iincrease knowledge of suicide warning signs, risk factors, and protective factors;
2. Enhance suicide crisis intervention availability, quality and public awareness of service;
3. Increase local community collaboration in suicide prevention;
4. Establish and increase support for suicide survivors through postvention and prevention;
5. Increase resiliency among youth at risk;
6. Enhance existing emergency department services for youth and their families to increase culturally and linguistically-sensitive training regarding ways to reduce future self-injurious behavior through reduction of lethal means and by reducing stigma to seek treatment; and
7. Provide additional training in clinical suicide risk management to medical/mental health professionals and paraprofessionals across the state. Many activities will be implemented across the state, while others will be focused within a few school systems.