Fostering Resilience in Youth and Encouraging 

Youth Awareness of Mental Health

Research on youth resilience suggests risk factors of poverty, adverse childhood 

experiences, and trauma, including historical trauma, can be mitigated by the following

experiences because they help build youths’ resilience. These experiences include:

• a consistent relationship with at least one safe, caring, reliable, and competent

adult who promotes high expectations and encourages self-improvement;

• opportunities for constructive engagement in family, community, school, and

other social institutions and productive decision-making;

• adolescent voice, choice, and personal responsibility;

• the development of self-regulation, self-reflection, self-confidence, selfcompassion, and character.1

Research likewise suggests mental health is essential to overall health but not everyone 

may understand this connection. It may not always be clear what is necessary to foster

mental health in an individual or in a community. Interestingly, building youth 

resilience and promoting youth awareness of mental health intersect in key areas. The 

World Health Organization (WHO) has identified five action strategies of health 

promotion, which apply equally to mental health promotion. They are: 

• Create supportive environments,

• Develop personal skills,

• Strengthen community action,

• Reorient health services, and

• Build healthy public policy.

1 Youth Resilience: Protective and Promotive Factors, Center for the Study of Social Policy, retrieved 

from http://www.cssp.org/reform/child-welfare/youth-thrive/2013/YT_Youth-Resilience.pdf
2 

WHO goes on to say, “In some communities, time-honored practices and ways of life 

maintain mental health even though mental health may not be identified as the outcome, 

or identified by name. In other communities, people need to be convinced that trying to 

improve mental health is realistic and worthwhile.”

2

These health promotion strategies are reflected in the goals of the Native Connections 

grant. As Native Connections projects develop their strategic action plans, considering the 

intersection of these two important concepts, youth resilience and mental health 

promotion, can help in fulfilling the expectations of the grant and in choosing appropriate 

activities and interventions for your community. A look at these expectations shows how 

the grant activities will help build youth resilience while also promoting mental health. 

Following are some of these expectations.

• Identify and connect services and supports.

• Involve community members.

• Assess needs and strengths.

• Develop a plan.

• Use strategies shown to be effective.

When choosing strategies for your community, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center

website has a Resources and Programs page (https://www.sprc.org/resources-programs) 

that might be helpful. It is a searchable repository that provides information on several 

types of suicide prevention programs and includes programs with evidence of effectiveness 

(sometimes also called evidence-based practices).3

Some suicide prevention programs with evidence of effectiveness in American Indian and 

Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Gatekeeper 

Training, a brief educational program to teach people to recognize and refer someone at 

risk of suicide and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), a 2-day training 

program aimed at developing “suicide first aid” skills and competencies. 

2 2004, Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice: summary report / a report from

WHO, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse in collaboration with the Victorian Health 

Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and the University of Melbourne.

3

 Please be aware that SAMHSA’s National Registry for Evidence-based Programs and Practices (NREPP) has been 

discontinued and SAMHSA is reconfiguring its approach to identifying and disseminating evidence-based practices.
3 

SOS Signs of Suicide Prevention Program is a universal, school-based depression 

awareness and suicide prevention program designed for middle-school (ages 11–13 years) 

or high-school (ages 13–17 years) students. The Model Adolescent Suicide Prevention 

Program (MASPP) is a public health-oriented suicidal-behavior prevention and intervention 

program originally developed for a small tribe in the southwest. MASPP promotes 

adolescent suicide prevention through community education about suicide and related 

behavioral issues, such as child abuse and neglect, family violence, trauma, and alcohol and 

substance abuse.

Programs used in AI/AN communities that address other risk factors are Project Venture, 

an outdoor, experiential, youth development program for middle schoolers, which is 

guided by American Indian values and aimed at preventing substance use and promoting 

resilience and mental wellness. The American Indian Life Skills Development Curriculum

(AILS) is a Native American-based framework for life skills development and suicide 

prevention. AILS strives to instill self-respect and self-esteem, teach communication and 

conflict management skills, encourage goal setting and future planning, and increase

understanding of issues related to suicide awareness and prevention. 

Programs with evidence of effectiveness specifically for adults and the larger community 

include: Mental Health First Aid, an adult public education program designed to improve 

participants' knowledge and modify their attitudes and perceptions about mental health 

and related issues, including how to respond to individuals who are experiencing a mental 

health crisis; and Family Check-Up for Adolescents, a strengths-based, family-centered 

intervention that motivates parents to use good parenting practices to support child 

competence, mental health, and reducing risks for substance use. Lastly, Family Spirit is a 

culturally tailored home-visiting intervention for American Indian teenage mothers from 

pregnancy through 36 months postpartum. This intervention is designed to increase 

parenting, reduce maternal psychosocial and behavioral risks, and promote healthy infant 

and toddler emotional and social adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing 

behaviors). 

For more information about suicide prevention efforts for AI/AN groups, refer to the SPRC 

Promising Prevention Practices web page: https://www.sprc.org/aian/promisingprevention-practices. For more information about evidence-based practices, visit the 

SAMHSA Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center website: https://www.samhsa.gov/

ebp-resource-center.