Bethel police, tribal court and clinic hosted a two-day suicide prevention training

The Bethel Police Department, the Orutsararmiut Native Council's Tribal Court Services and Bethel Family Clinic hosted a two-day suicide prevention training for local organizations Nov. 2 and 3, the City of Bethel said.

Representatives of the Bethel Youth Facility, Tundra Women's Coalition, ONC, the Lower Kuskokwim School District and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation took part, along with the clinic. The sessions, at ONC's Multi-Purpose Building, focused on planning and on building partnerships among the organizations, the city said.

NAMI New Hampshire, the state affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, provided the training with the Alaska Department of Health, and Elaine de Mello of NAMI New Hampshire led it. The group developed Connect, the suicide prevention model taught in Bethel, which the Statewide Suicide Prevention Council's 2024 annual report describes as being on a best-practice registry.

All eight school districts in a state school suicide prevention grant program, from the North Slope to Southeast, took Connect training at a 2024 meeting so they could bring it back to their districts, the report says.

Alaska recorded 213 suicide deaths in 2023, a rate of 28.5 per 100,000 people, the report says. That's about double the national rate of 14.2. Rates per person are much higher in rural Alaska, particularly in the Western and Interior regions. State data released in August show Alaska's youth suicide rate reached a 10-year high in 2025.

The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by calling 988.