FRANKFORT, Ky. (WBKO) – On Monday, Oct. 25, dozens of Kentucky students attended the first Sources of Strength Peer Leader Summit at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.
The summit was co-hosted by the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) and the Kentucky Department for Behavioral Health, Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities (BHDID).
According to the press release, Sources of Strength is a strengths-based suicide prevention program that engages the power of student creativity and peer influence to support positive mental health and promote well-being, help-seeking, healthy activities, and a sense of belonging among youth within a school.
The program has shown evidence of preventing suicide, violence, bullying, and substance misuse.
Blake Konny, program consultant in the KDE Office of Continuous Improvement and Support, Division of Student Success, said many schools have been using the Sources of Strength program for years, and it affects many aspects of a school’s culture and climate.
“We just felt that it was extremely important, and we saw a need in a lot of our schools to help them take the next steps with their Sources of Strength programs,” he said in a press release.
Students participated in teambuilding activities, games, and discussions about their Sources of Strength campaigns and other efforts to raise awareness of mental health supports.
“Of course, it deals with suicide prevention, but it also teaches young people about the strengths they have within them and things that they can build within themselves to be a great young person and a great adult,” said Sheila Barnard, a program administrator for BHDID in a press release.
Konny said KDE and BHDID have been focusing on Sources of Strength largely because it’s peer-led.
“We know that peers listen to their peers more often than they listen to adults, and they reach out for help from their peers more often than they reach out to adults,” he said in a press release. “While all the adult programs we have are great, this gives us another avenue to make sure that our communities are healthy and safe.”
Lori Vogel, a child guidance specialist/school social worker at Leestown Middle School in Fayette County, helped start a Sources of Strength program in her district.
She said she partnered with several community groups, including KDE, BHDID, and Brothers’ Run, a charity organization designed to support school and community programs that provide adolescent mental health services, suicide prevention, and awareness.
“(Sources of Strength) was just something that seemed like a normal fit because it already brings so many different groups together,” Vogel said in a press release.
Charley Abney, an 8th-grade student at Leestown Middle School, has been a peer leader with the school’s Sources of Strength program for the past three years. She said her school has mental health support, but there’s always room for more.
“A lot of people struggle,” Abney said in a press release. “Sometimes they just lay their head down and completely shut out and we don’t want that to be the only way they can start to feel better.”
Ciler Smith, another 8th-grade student at Leestown Middle School, said he likes working with Sources of Strength because it spreads a message of positivity, especially for students around his age in middle school because of how complicated that time can be.
“It’s a really good opportunity for students and you can learn a lot,” he said in a press release.
Konny said he expects the summit to grow in the future. Plans on how to expand the program could include making the event annual and/or making summits more regional instead of having one for the entire state.
“We definitely see that it spreads regionally because once one school has an active program and they see success, others in that community and others nearby hear about it,” Konny said.
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