Ryan Bartel Foundation Inc

Education and training the successful delivery of our teen programs depends on trained adult facilitators. Our own created teen mental wellness facilitator program provides facilitators who have domain expertise with mental health literacy and group facilitation skills to deliver our resilience building workshops and programs. Once trained, they help create a safe space for teens to be their authentic selves, fostering acceptance and connection with other teens and adults. Sources of strength is a best practice, evidence led youth mental health promotion and suicide prevention program offered by us to schools and communities. It offers training and curriculum for both youth and adults, using a strength-based, upstream approach to mental health promotion and the prevention of adverse outcomes such as suicide, violence, bullying, and substance misuse. By reinforcing multiple sources of support, also known as protective factors, this model helps young people build resilience, ensuring they have strengths to lean on during difficult times.

Scholarships two scholarships, the heart of humanity and the beacon of hope award, are offered annually to reward graduating high school seniors who have become peer mentors, helping their peers who may be struggling with their mental and emotional well-being. Each award is based on slightly different criteria and winners cannot nominate themselves, but are nominated by a peer or adult who has been a witness to their acts of kindness and support of another peer.

Resources an online and on-demand library has been created to support parents and teens with helpful resources through different mediums, from on-demand webinars, to blog posts or a directory of local and national resources to contact. The mental health advisory council of 6 experts in youth mental health and suicide prevention from across virginia help provide content for our resource library and meet regularly with key staff members to discuss program challenges and provide guidance. The goals of the members are to ensure our programs 1) are evidence-informed and grounded in the latest data and research on youth mental health promotion 2) use best practices in crisis response and safety planning, diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and trauma-informed facilitation 3) have an effective monitoring and evaluation plan to measure impact.