East Texas Medical Center (ETMC) foundation logo. 

Next Step Community Solutions (NSCS) recently received a $253,991 grant from the East Texas Medical Center (ETMC) Foundation to support the growth of Sources of Strength, peer-led suicide prevention program on school campuses across East Texas.

The program is currently offered in school districts such as Brownsboro, West Rusk, Mineola, Spring Hill, Pine Tree and recently has been voted to be part of all middle and high school campuses in Tyler ISD, according to Brandon Davidson, interim executive director of Next Step Community Solutions.

“We are excited to receive this grant from the ETMC Foundation so we can continue working with youth across East Texas to build them into resilient students that trust adults to help them in crisis or need and ultimately save lives,” said Erica Guzman, director of mental health for Next Step. “Suicide is the second leading cause of death in adolescents in the state of Texas, so we hope to be able to continue to expand this program to as many middle and high school campuses within 75 miles of Tyler, Texas.”

Next Step is the first to bring Sources of Strength inside a Texas campus which happened in January 2020 at Tyler Legacy High School. Since its implementation, it has seen a lot of support from school districts, said Davidson.

“Campuses really want to rally behind this because it has a lot of other impacts like the program itself; it shows good results for not only suicide prevention but also decreasing incidence of bullying, decreasing substance use, which we know because students often use substances as a way to self medicate for mental health issues. So by supporting their mental health, the substance abuse numbers go down. Then it also helps reduce dating violence..,” he said.

Davidson mentioned another impact of Sources of Strength has been normalizing the idea to seek support from trusted adults by students, and also shining a light on finding ways to assist students with mental health needs and finding the ‘sources of strength’ to use when going through times of mental assistance.

Thanks to the grant, Sources of Strength is implemented in campuses free-of-cost. Davidson said the grant will help with training staff among campuses, and the expansion among school districts, which has grown since it was launched.

“The feedback we’ve received from schools and students has been tremendous and we have grown this program to help meet the demands we are receiving from schools,” said Davidson. “We have already seen a positive impact at the schools we serve since introducing Sources of Strength on their campus and with additional funding we can deepen and expand these services.”

The ETMC Foundation is a private foundation created by the sale of the East Texas Medical Regional Healthcare System to Ardent Health Services in 2018. The foundation is dedicated to improving the health and quality of lives in Tyler and the surrounding East Texas communities.

To learn more about the ETMC Foundation go to etmcfoundation.org. For more information on NSCS go to nextstepcs.org.