Members of the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Task Force workgroup on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health on which The Steve Fund is represented led a study on suicide and suicide attempts in black youth. Dr. Michael Lindsey, Dr. Sean Joe, and Dr. Arielle Sheftall co-authored the report.

To view the published paper, click here

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey reacted to the report via Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation on MSNBC over the weekend.

See video below:

In May 2019, The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) launched an Emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health to bring attention to the rising suicide rate among black children and to identify legislative recommendations.

Dr. Annelle Primm, Senior Medical Director, represents The Steve Fund on a working group of experts and stakeholders that supports this new task force.

Dr. Sean Joe, a co-author of the paper on suicide and suicide attempts in black youth, was a speaker and collaborator on The Steve Fund’s YGAR Conference Series at Washington University in St. Louis in 2016.

Resource

The Steve Fund has created ​a special keyword, STEVE, that young people of color can text to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor 24/7. ​ The Fund views text messaging as a key component of its strategy towards addressing the unmet mental health needs of college and university students of color.​ Through its partnership with the Crisis Text Line, the Fund promotes text messaging as a means to improve the critically needed access for young people of color to crisis counseling.

Text STEVE to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.

What you can do

  1. If you are a young person of color who is feeling stressed, depressed, or anxious, please know you can text STEVE to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor 24/7.
  2. If you know young persons of color who are feeling stressed, depressed, or anxious, please let them know they can text STEVE to 741741 to connect with a trained crisis counselor 24/7.