Sources of Strength is an upstream, Strength-based suicide prevention and mental health promotion program. Founded in 1998 in Bismarck, North Dakota, Sources of Strength has taken a different approach to prevention for more than 25 years. The program employs eight Strengths, or protective factors (family support, positive friends, mentors, healthy activities, generosity, spirituality, physical health, and mental health), to boost resilience in the lives of young people, with the evidence base to show that the further we move upstream to build protection and health in people’s lives, the better equipped they will be to navigate the natural ups and downs of life.

Sources of Strength utilizes Social Network Theory to recruit diverse and influential students known as Peer Leaders to model positive behaviors such as help-seeking, healthy coping, and identifying Trusted Adults. Sources of Strength partners these influential Peer Leaders with caring, connected, and positive Adult Advisors to instigate a public health initiative in their school or community. Through a series of public health messaging campaigns targeted to increase protective factors and resilience-promoting behaviors in their peers’ lives, Sources of Strength’s evidence base shows that Peer Leaders are capable of changing population-level health norms.

Sources of Strength shows effectiveness in both preventative upstream and intervention outcomes. The program has been involved in several large randomized control trials and is one of the most rigorously evaluated and broadly disseminated prevention programs in the country. Sources of Strength is considered the first suicide prevention program to demonstrate effectiveness using Peer Leaders to enhance protective factors associated with reducing suicide across a school population. According to a 2023 publication, Sources of Strength is the first universal intervention that has shown a potential reduction in youth suicide mortality through an RCT.

The program has been implemented in urban, suburban, rural, and tribal settings and presently partners with thousands of middle and high schools across the US. Sources has had success in universities, LGBTQIA+ organizations, cultural community centers, faith-based groups, detention centers, the military, and more. Sources of Strength teams are active across the United States, Canada, and many American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations communities. Sources now also offers K-6 classroom curricula.