On August 12th, the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the “Sources of Strength” program, which is a universal school-based suicide prevention program designed to build protective influences across a defined adolescent population. The evidence-based program trains students as peer leaders and connects them with mentoring adult advisors at school and in the community.
Through this RFP, OMH will provide $710,800 to one organization over the five-year program. The awarded organization will be responsible for identifying participating schools in consultation with OMH, training peer leaders and adult advisors in the Sources of Strength program, and monitoring school performance. Eligible applicants are not-for-profit 501(c)(3) agencies that have experience implementing evidence-based prevention programming in youth-serving organizational settings, such as schools. The awarded applicant will be required to contract with the national Sources of Strength organization for training, licensing, materials, and support.
Our summary is attached, and the full RFP is available here. Required Letters of Intent are due on October 13th and applications are due on October 27th. OMH will host a non-mandatory virtual conference to review the RFP components and answer questions on August 30th at 1pm. Interested applicants may join the conference here.