{"id":295373,"date":"2026-05-16T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/295373\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T01:28:07","slug":"el-paso-county-mental-health-advocates-seek-community-input-on-current-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/295373\/","title":{"rendered":"El Paso County mental health advocates seek community input on current resources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/spcollab.org\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/spcollab.org\/\">The Suicide Prevention Collaborative of El Paso County<\/a> is working to identify how the community feels about the current mental health resources available in the county. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The group is with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.changeline.org\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.changeline.org\/\">ChangeLine<\/a>, and advocates are asking people to take a survey, sharing their experience with mental health and the help they received in the county. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Talking about suicide can be hard, but ChangeLine Transformation Manager, Nicole Johnston, said it is necessary. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cIf we\u2019re not open about it, there\u2019s a lot of shame and stigma when there shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d said Johnston.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Johnston said El Paso County saw around an 18% decrease in deaths by suicide in 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBut we want to make sure that continues, and we should never just rest and say we accomplished this,\u201d said Johnston. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">That\u2019s why the collaboration is surveying the community about their mental health crisis experience. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe want to dig in and get some information to inform our strategies for next steps,\u201d said Johnston. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The survey is anonymous, and Johnston said the organization wants to hear from a diverse group of people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAre there different experiences based on background? We don\u2019t know, but this data will help us,\u201d Johnston continued. \u201cWhether it\u2019s social isolation, whether it\u2019s economic issues, we really want to get more information so we can better serve people who are having a mental health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Johnston said more data could bring more funding for resources. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cAs dollars get tight and more competitive for funding opportunities, it really is about getting data and then measurable outcomes,\u201d said Johnston. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The transformation manager said suicide prevention awareness is increasing in El Paso County, which presents the perfect time for action. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are just really asking people to go invest eight minutes of their time on this survey,\u201d Johnston continued. \u201cWe\u2019re just hoping for a really good turnout.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The survey is available in English or Spanish for people 18 or older. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Parents and guardians can take the survey for their child. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/impact.changeline.org\/s3\/MHCrisis-Experience-Survey?_privatedomain=t&amp;sg_maintain_session=1&amp;sg_navigate=start&amp;sglocale=en\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/impact.changeline.org\/s3\/MHCrisis-Experience-Survey?_privatedomain=t&amp;sg_maintain_session=1&amp;sg_navigate=start&amp;sglocale=en\">The survey<\/a> is available until May 22nd. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">If you are experiencing mental health challenges you can call 988.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KKTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KKTV) &#8211; The Suicide Prevention Collaborative of El Paso County is working to identify&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-295373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}