El Paso County Public Health is pulling out of the community’s youth suicide prevention efforts after a decade of leading the work, agency officials announced at a Board of Health meeting in August, while speaking about the proposed 2027 budget.
The “shocking” decision to eliminate the program comes as the number of children ages 10-17 who died by suicide more than doubled last year over the previous year to nine fatalities, according to the coroner’s annual report released in September.
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With pandemic-era grants ending, public health is downsizing its staff and restructuring to reduce expenses, leaders said.
Among the changes coming next year, the Community Health Promotion Division, which includes youth suicide prevention, wants to better align services and provide sustainability for its other duties addressing maternal and family health, chronic disease and substance use prevention, Dacia Hudson, director of the division, said at the meeting.
The news was shocking and concerning, said Cass Walton, executive director of Pikes Peak Suicide Prevention Partnership, a nonprofit that provides free prevention materials, education, intervention and support after a suicide loss of any age.
“No one was consulted or talked to prior to them making the decision — it was determined through an internal process,” she said. “It’s disappointing we’re losing the public authority to illustrate to the community how important suicide prevention is.”
The Youth Suicide Prevention work group was created 10 years ago after suicide clusters began emerging at several local schools.
Adolescent deaths by suicide in El Paso County rose to an alarming high of 15 in 2016, which focused the national spotlight on Colorado Springs and prompted questions of why an epidemic had taken hold.
In response, El Paso County Public Health took charge of coordinating and overseeing the Youth Suicide Prevention work group.
Today, about 70 representatives from area school districts, youth-serving organizations and industry professionals are on the mailing list. Between 20 and 30 members are active and involved in all initiatives, said Walton, who’s had leadership roles including chairperson.
The group claimed success in subsequent years in lowering youth suicides because representatives from all sectors became part of a concerted push, the former county coroner, Dr. Leon Kelly, told The Gazette in 2022.
“Every conceivable youth-facing organization, from faith-based, to Inside Out, to schools, to parents, to law enforcement, to mental health professionals was identifying what was going on and what they could bring to the table,” Kelly said.
Walton cites several accomplishments, including creating a parent-to-parent handout to “normalize the conversation” about the topic of teen suicide and provide steps on what parents can do to help avert crises, distributing outreach information and building a webpage with resources.
But most importantly, Walton said, the group involved the target market; local teens produced videos and other promotional prevention campaigns for youth, by youth.
Still, the rate of suicides in El Paso County rose precipitously in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, to tie the 2016 high of 15 adolescent suicide fatalities.
Vacillating numbers over the past few years show how complex the issue is, Walton said.
From 2020s record-tying high, the number fell to four youth deaths in 2021 and 2022, increased to 10 deaths in 2023, dipped back to four in 2024 and last year came in at nine.
Suicides of all ages in El Paso County rose to 190 last year, up from 155 in 2024, according to the coroner’s report.
Analysts tend to look at statistics across five years to identify trends, Walton said. Under that model, cases have been relatively flat countywide yet still considered high.
In some years, suicide has been the leading cause of death for children under age 18 countywide. Last year, it was the second-leading cause after natural causes, which took the lives of 11 children.
Coroner-identified risk factors in teen suicide in 2025 were mental health issues, a history of self-harm and/or suicidal thoughts, recent arguments, family discord, academic issues and history of abuse or domestic violence.
Nonprofits expected to assume ownership
An audit of state suicide prevention programs released in December 2020 found that about one-quarter of 80 organizations receiving federal and state suicide prevention funds failed to meet performance expectations. The report concluded it was difficult to determine the efficacy of suicide prevention.
Walton said increased government funding in those years led to more stringent requirements for metrics, which became difficult for some organizations to fulfill.
She points to preventive measures that have been proven to work, she said, including safely storing guns and using gun locks to prevent children or adults at risk of self-harm from using firearms, the most common method of suicide.
Others are early intervention for adolescents displaying signs of mental distress, and providing prevention training and awareness along with information on what to do if you or someone you know is indicating they are considering suicide.
The plan going forward is for the local public health department to “shift from longstanding community initiatives to empower more community ownership for those initiatives,” Hudson said at the recent Board of Health meeting.
The department will continue to track data and participate in community prevention initiatives, she said.
Emily Brady, co-CEO of the Colorado Springs office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she was disappointed by the action.
“This work needs to remain a priority, and efforts must continue to address the well-being of our local youth and their families,” she said.
Among its services, NAMI offers free peer-led support groups for people who have mental distress and illness, as well as family support groups.
Brady said she’s optimistic that youth suicide prevention work won’t disappear.
“Community leaders in the mental health and suicide prevention sectors are already collaborating on strategies to move forward,” she said.
Walton said her organization is researching possible grants to continue without public health, as concerned organizations scramble to come up with a transition plan.
However, most nonprofits are facing tight budgets and shrinking funding sources, she said, adding she’s unsure whether the nonprofit sector will be able to replace the loss of health department’s leadership.
“This program has a small budget but makes a big impact in the community because of the nature of community coalition work,” she said.
The model is most successful under the direction of a backbone organization, Walton said, which is what the local public health department has been. “Most everyone else doing the work is volunteering.”
El Paso County Public Health had budgeted $100,000 for the Youth Suicide Prevention program for this year, out of a proposed budget for next year of $26.4 million.
“The microscopic significance within the El Paso County Public Health budget is already having a macroscopic impact, which signals that this decision is about a lack of value, not a lack of resources,” said Alie Ehrensaft, director of strategic initiatives for Inside Out Youth Services, which offers programs and a meetup center for LGBTQ+ youth and young adults.
The decision is disheartening, she said.
“There is overwhelming research that shows that suicidality impacts the LGBTQ+ community at far higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ people,” Ehrensaft said.
At Inside Out Youth Services, 37% of the teens the organization has worked with this year — or 71 kids — have previously attempted suicide, she said.
“This elimination of funding means that the county has no structural or financial commitment to mental health within El Paso County Public Health, which sends a message to our community that mental health is not a priority for our kids,” Ehrensaft said.
“This decision displaces labor onto other organizations, which have fewer resources and less capacity while the need continues to increase.”
Pikes Peak Suicide Prevention Collaborative is another community-wide initiative. The problem, Walton said, is that group is not specific to youth but focuses on adult suicide.
“The call-to-action is to continue to pay attention and work on youth suicide prevention together,” Walton said. “It’s not something to be de-prioritized. Regardless of the numbers, suicide is an indicator that we have areas of our community that are unwell.”
Anyone struggling with thoughts of suicide or mental health in general can reach out to the Colorado Crisis and Suicide Line by calling or texting 988. The live service is available 24/7.
El Paso County deaths by suicide of youth under age 18
2025 undefined 9
2024 — 4
2023 – 10
2022 — 4
2021 — 4
2020 – 15
2019 – 9
2018 — 7
2017 – 13
2016 – 15
2015 – 14
2014 – 7
Sources: El Paso County Coroner’s Office annual reports and El Paso County Child Fatality Review Team