Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program®

The Light for Life Foundation Int’l / Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program® is dedicated to preventing suicide and attempts by Making Suicide Prevention Accessible to Everyone and Removing Barriers to Help.

 

NEEDS & WANTS 

Most pressing needs for 2024/2025:

1) Courses and Training for Staff, for example; Quickbooks, WordPress, MailChimp, JotForm, Woo Commerce and Give WP.  

2) Additional $50,000 to keep up with the requests for assistance.

3) Two (2) additional staff & three (3) new volunteers to be able to keep up with the demands for response, coordination of chapters and program Sites and for the requests for training.

4) Need Video equipment and courses to be able to train youth and adults through online training videos, Powerpoints, Blog/Vlogs and web-based prevention training.

5) Funding coordination to re-build stock of necessary materials: training & toolbook materials, DVD production, Yellow Ribbon Cards (additional 200,000), Brochures, Lanyards, Yellow Ribbon stickers, Bears , Car Magnets, YR pins, bookmarks and other supplies.

TESTIMONIALS 

 

Accomplishments for the past year:
1) Requests for training have continued to increase significantly since we have gone to live Virtual Training with all of our Training Programs. Yellow Ribbon Is a National Best Practices Program. People in many roles, at all levels of the community should be trained in community readiness and suicide prevention. 

• Two-Day Virtual Training Workshop to become a YR Trainer
• Be-A-Link® Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training for Adults 
• Ask 4 Help!® Youth Suicide Prevention Training for Teens
• Ask 4 Help!® Elementary Program for Youth and Children and the adults who work with them.

2) Social Media efforts for Yellow Ribbon have successfully expanded on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with posts and responses increasing every month.

3) Expanded training has continued with the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and with the US Border Patrol.

Goals for the Current year:
1) Update and complete effective online versions of all training programs.
2) Train at least 5000 new school-based gatekeepers ready to help youth. 
3) Distribute at least 45,000 additional Ask4Help cards to youth/ adults throughout Colorado.
4) Continue updates of the Yellow Ribbon website to include interactive pages, chapter/ program site information sheets and new updated e-commerce and training pages.

HISTORY

Yellow Ribbon, an international suicide prevention program was founded in 1994 in Westminster, Colorado, by Dale and Dar Emme, following the death of their son Mike Emme by suicide. Mike took his life when he did not know the words to say, or how to let someone know he was in trouble and needed help. On the night before Mike's memorial services, his friends shared their grief and their tears as they pinned yellow ribbons on yellow papers. Five hundred ribbon cards were placed in a basket and set out at his services. All the ribbon cards were gone at the end of the services! In three short weeks, after Mike's services, a phone call came from a teacher in Wyoming. A student had given her one of those bright yellow messages of hope when the student was at a time of her own need. The teacher called because she wanted to get help for teens in her area. Additional calls began to come in from throughout the U.S. - teens were sending those cards to everyone! Teens also began to call and write, asking for 'those yellow ribbon cards.' The ribbon became the symbol of the program when the teens began tying them in their hair and pinning them to their clothes the day Mike died. Yellow was in memory of his cherished '68 Yellow Mustang. Today, the Colorado office coordinates chapters and program sites in all 50 states, 2 territories, and 47 foreign countries. All chapters are self-funded.

Yellow Ribbon 'STARTS the Conversation' about suicide issues and prevention. It makes suicide prevention accessible to everyone. In a climate of fear about suicide in general, and fear of 'what can I do', or 'I don't want to make things worse', with Yellow Ribbon everyone is allowed and encouraged, empowered to participate in suicide prevention at their own comfort level. Youth are already faced with friends and family who are at risk and they are already talking to friends they are worried about. Yellow Ribbon empowers them to be able to respond safely, and appropriately, when a friend or relative is in crisis. Youth are already talking with one another, so it is up to us to make sure they know what to do to help a friend to then be able to get that friend to the appropriate help they need.