About Our New(ish) Suicide Prevention Program
- Jul 31
- 5 min read
By Gerda Gonzalez, LCSW, Senior Program Director
In 2024, The Child Center of NY was honored to receive a grant from the New York State Office of Mental Health for suicide prevention among historically under-served populations and LGBTQ+ youth. We currently work with five schools, as well as our DYCD-funded Ocean Bay Cornerstone Community Center. We focus on low-income communities in Corona, Flushing, the Rockaways, and Crown Heights in Queens and Brooklyn.
I was excited to help put this program into practice. For five years, I have worked as a therapist and senior program director of school-based mental health at The Child Center. I see every day that our young people are struggling. They’re not alone. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for Americans ages 10-34. One in five high schoolers seriously considered suicide in 2023.
Our 12 school-based mental health programs play a vital role in reversing this trend, making therapy easily accessible and ensuring mental health is an integral part of students’ education. This suicide prevention program builds on that foundation while filling gaps in positive, holistic ways. It gives us the funding and tools to address many of the factors that shape young people's well-being.
Counselors provide individual and group counseling, lead workshops and campaigns that extend beyond traditional mental health topics, and help families, students, and school staff build stronger, emotionally intelligent communities, based on the following principles.
1) Mental wellness is about more than mental health.
Of course, explicit mental health strategies are a core part of what we do. Through frequent workshops and monthly campaigns, we help participants build coping skills, regulate their emotions, and generally strengthen their emotional intelligence.
We also recognize that mental wellness is shaped by many other factors. If a child isn't getting the support they need to succeed in school, for example, that will inevitably affect their mental health.
Every month, counselors host workshops on academic skills, career readiness, and life skills. They are required to offer one career readiness/academic workshop each month and five life skill workshops a year, but throughout the past year they consistently did more than that because the demand kept growing. Schools and the community center quickly realized how valuable these workshops were. We always get more participants who show up than have signed up—and we never turn anyone away. Last year, the first full year of the program, we engaged 2,713 individuals in psychoeducational workshops, presentations, and other events.
One of our most successful campaigns was "Throw Away Your Stress." Participants wrote down something weighing on them, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it into a trash can, earning prizes depending on which receptacle they landed it in. Coping tools such as kinetic sand and fidget spinners were given out as prizes. The kids loved it, and they also walked away with practical strategies for managing stress.
2) Buy-in is crucial—and it has to be earned. When we first started the program, no one knew who we were, and it was a hard sell; we didn't have the buy-in yet. As we progressed, it's become very easy to get that buy-in. Much of that success comes from the youth leaders we empower and the counselors we hire. They are credible messengers.
Each site has a youth leadership committee. Members bring their friends to events, and those friends invite others. Suddenly we have a reputation as the place to be!
Two youths in particular stand out to me as examples of how multi-layered the benefits of this are. These individuals were struggling in school on a variety of fronts. But a counselor saw their potential. After working with them through individual services, she invited them to become youth leaders. Since then, their grades have improved, their attendance has improved, and it actually has helped their overall wellness. We've seen across the board that when we put youth in leadership positions or give them real responsibility, they show up. And it’s beautiful.
The counselors themselves increase buy-in because they understand what the youth are saying—literally and figuratively. Whenever possible, we hire professionals from the neighborhoods they serve or from communities with similar experiences, so they understand their struggles and connect with them in authentic ways.
Our counselors are simply amazing. They do individual counseling, group counseling, and activities the youth enjoy, like dance, cheerleading, and art. Counselors have hosted leadership groups, art therapy group, empowerment group, podcast group, and two mindfulness groups. In 2025, 3,074 young people engaged with us in these and other youth development activities. They also organize life skills workshops for their parents and send newsletters to families every month, highlighting tips and tricks on how to support their youth, as well as events that are happening in the school.
At the parent workshops, counselors give out items that families may need, like toilet paper or other daily necessities, in addition to teaching coping strategies and strategies to support their youth. Which brings us to the next point.
3) Poverty is trauma. If you’re living in a car because your family was evicted, or you can’t find a doctor who accepts Medicaid for a chronic condition, no amount of therapy in the world is going to be enough. That’s why connecting families to resources and support plays a significant role in what we do. Our team’s case manager attends parent events and informs them about The Child Center Benefits Access program, through which they can apply for SNAP (food stamps) and other benefits. Like our counselors, the case manager at Benefits Access is skilled and warm, making what can be a difficult process much less overwhelming. These efforts can't erase the challenges families face, but they can ease some of the constant stress that comes with living below the poverty line.
Even so, much more needs to be done. I would like to see significant improvements in the ways government supports families experiencing poverty. Many of the families we serve are working harder than ever, yet struggling more than ever simply to get by.
4) School and site staff are vital partners. Teachers and other school and site staff are really on the frontlines and are our best defense against suicide—as well as our best tool to improve mental health on both an individual and school community level. We leverage this in many ways. One counselor organized a trauma training, teaching teachers about why some students present the way they do and understanding how the brain is affected by trauma. The goal is to help educators bring these insights into their classrooms while recognizing when students need additional support.
Although “suicide prevention” is literally the name of the program, all these efforts do more than solely prevent youth from tragically ending their lives. We're working to prevent them from ever reaching the point of suicidal ideation to begin with. We want them to feel seen, supported, and hopeful long before they reach a crisis. Every workshop, every counseling session, every leadership opportunity, and every connection to resources is part of that effort. We're working hard to give young people the skills they need not just to survive, but to triumph.
