A national milestone recognizes the strength of OMM’s teen-led approach to mental health promotion and upstream suicide prevention.

Ten years in the making, the moment is finally here. We are thrilled to share that Our Minds Matter (OMM) has been approved for inclusion in the Best Practices Registry of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). 

For the past decade, OMM has worked relentlessly toward a future in which no teen dies by suicide by equipping young people to care for their own well-being, support their peers, and transform school culture. Our SPRC Best Practice Registry listing offers meaningful national recognition of the program we have built alongside teens, schools, researchers, partners, and supporters. 

Most importantly, it affirms a powerful idea at the heart of OMM: when young people are trusted, trained, and supported to lead, they can help create school communities where connection, help-seeking, and mental well-being become part of everyday life.

What does this recognition mean?

The SPRC Best Practice Registry (BPR) is a national resource for suicide prevention programs and interventions that incorporate current best practices and community-informed approaches. It is designed to help schools, public health leaders, mental health professionals, funders, and communities identify approaches that best fit their needs. 

To attain our listing as a BPR-Approved Program, OMM completed a multi-expert review process. According to SPRC, BPR-Approved Programs are reviewed for safe and responsible messaging about suicide, appropriate protocols for addressing imminent risk, and documented evidence of effectiveness in achieving their stated goals. Each program is reviewed at least three times, including by two independent suicide prevention professionals and at least one reviewer with suicide-centered lived or living experience. 

SPRC classifies OMM as both an education or training program and an environment or systems program supported by empirically defined evidence. The listing places OMM within three elements of SPRC’s Comprehensive Approach to Suicide Prevention: increasing help-seeking, strengthening life skills and resilience, and promoting connectedness.

That recognition is especially significant because OMM works upstream—before a mental health challenge becomes a crisis. OMM complements, rather than replaces, counseling, clinical care, crisis response, and other targeted interventions. By strengthening protective factors across a school community, the program helps create conditions in which students are more connected, more prepared to cope, and more willing to reach for help. 

The evidence behind OMM

OMM’s BPR listing reflects the evidence base we have developed through years of program evaluation and research. SPRC identifies the methods supporting OMM as including quantitative and qualitative designs, descriptive and correlational studies, quasi-experimental research, and focus groups.

Across this body of work, several findings stand out:

• Teens build protective factors. OMM evaluates four factors associated with stronger mental health and reduced suicide risks: social connectedness, positive coping and healthy habits, help-seeking, and prosocial skills. In the 2024-25 school year, a matched analysis of 106 students found improvements across all four protective factors and mental well-being, with most gains reaching statistical significance. Further, OMM’s research has consistently found that students who take on leadership roles report especially strong outcomes, indicating that teen leadership may deepen the benefits. 
• The impact can extend beyond club members. Quasi-experimental research found that students involved in OMM reported stronger academic confidence, social connectedness, and openness to seeking mental health support. Findings also point to a promising “ripple effect,” in which students who are not club members may benefit from broader exposure to OMM’s school-wide programming. 
• School culture can shift over time. A three-year trend analysis found a steady decline in students’ perceptions of mental health stigma across participating schools. OMM alumni have also described lasting benefits—including resilience, emotional intelligence, collaborative leadership, and an enduring commitment to mental wellness.

Together, these findings support the strength of OMM’s model: trained teen leaders, caring adult sponsors, structured and developmentally appropriate activities with flexible implementation plan, and school-wide campaigns that help make conversations about mental health more normal, visible, and actionable.

What this milestone means for our community

For schools and district partners, OMM’s BPR listing offers an independent source of confidence when selecting a universal, Tier 1 mental health promotion and suicide prevention program. OMM is designed to fit within existing school systems and complement Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports while centering student voice and leadership. 

For funders and philanthropic partners, this recognition represents an important due-diligence milestone. It confirms that OMM has a clearly defined model, documented outcomes, implementation supports, safety protocols, and the capacity to learn from evidence. Investment in OMM helps schools access not only club activities, but also the training, coaching, evaluation, and continuous improvement infrastructure needed to implement the model responsibly and expand its reach. 

For teens, families, and school staff, the recognition validates what they have helped build: a program that treats young people not simply as recipients of prevention, but as partners and leaders in it. It also affirms that teen leadership and safety can—and must—go hand in hand. 

For the suicide prevention field and youth mental health ecosystem, OMM adds to a growing body of work showing the promise of youth-centered, peer-led, and school-based upstream approaches. Every new study helps the field better understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions. 

A timely milestone—and a commitment

As September begins and communities across the country recognize Suicide Prevention Month, this milestone carries special meaning. This month invites all of us to raise awareness, reduce stigma, share resources, and renew our commitment to preventing suicide. OMM’s BPR listing also reminds us that prevention begins long before a moment of crisis—in the everyday work of strengthening connection, healthy coping, help-seeking, and care for one another.

Being listed in the SPRC BPR is not the finish line. It is both a celebration of how far we have come and a commitment to what comes next. OMM will continue to evaluate the program rigorously, listen to teens and school partners, share findings transparently, strengthen equitable implementation, and build the evidence for peer-led prevention. We will keep learning from results that affirm our approach as well as those that challenge us to improve. 

We are deeply grateful to the teen leaders, club members, sponsors, school and district partners, researchers, advisors, staff, board members, and funders whose voices and contributions made this recognition possible. This milestone belongs to all of you.

As we enter Suicide Prevention Month, we invite our entire community to turn recognition into action: listen to young people, make it safer to ask for help, invest in prevention, and create more places where every teen feels seen, supported, and valued. Together we can build school communities where mental health is part of everyday conversation—and where every teen knows that their mind matters.

If you or someone you know needs immediate support, text MIND to 741741 or call 988 for support. You are not alone.