SELF DISCOVERY PAIN POSITIONING AND PURPOSE INC

SDp3’s organization including our mission and goals:
Founded in 2018, Self-Discovery: Pain, Positioning & Purpose, Inc. (SDp3) is on a mission to eradicate suicide by creating awareness around mental health and wellness, suicide prevention and bullying through educational workshops that will stop the stigma attached to mental health and promote healing for all affected by COVID-19 in the Metropolitan Areas/Counties in Atlanta. Since inception, SDp3 has provided education, training, counseling, resources and/or referral services for over 35,000 people who were impacted or contemplating suicide. In 90% of cases, we have been able to deescalate client’s emotional crisis and coordinate resources and referrals for follow-up care. The remaining 10% were referred to partnering agencies for Inpatient and Intensive Outpatient Programs or Day Intensive Programs. While the statistics on suicide are troubling for every age group, SDp3 offers paths to intervention that encourages individuals, families, and communities to learn the warning signs and get help when help is needed for all age groups. SDp3 offers educational sessions to prevent suicide and foster recovery through evidence-based and trauma informed resiliency workshops, prevention/postvention workshops, peer to peer connections, and a coordination of community-based resources and referrals. We will provide Suicide Prevention and Mindful Self-Compassion education to raise awareness that suicide is preventable, train community members with suicide prevention and intervention skills, and build capacity for mindfulness, self-compassion, and trauma-sensitive interactions.

SDp3 Outcomes:
Outcomes are as follows: Identify and Assist Persons at Risk – Screen, assess, assist, and act based on need referenced in assessment, increase Help - Seeking - Identify and reduce structural and environmental barriers to seeking help by educating the community about the warning signs for suicide and correct misinformation. Provide Mindfulness training, train community gatekeepers to identify and assist people at risk, have course participants identify barriers to seeking help and make plans for how they personally would seek help if they needed it, reduce stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination by sharing true stories of individuals who sought help and benefited from it, provide evidence-based and trauma informed information on self-help and mindfulness tools and support options that people can access on their own, train peers to support help-seeking and provide information about available services and resources, ensure Access to Effective Mental Health and Suicide Care and Treatment, support Safe Care Transitions and Create Organizational Linkages, provide for Immediate and Long-Term Postvention, reduce Access to Means of Suicide, enhance Life Skills and Resilience.

Success Measures:
SDp3's Stomped Stigma Program was implemented in 2019 where we partnered with Community of Greater Atlanta, Resilient Georgia, Mary Hall Freedom Village, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Cobb Collaborative, In the Key of Dance, Steel City Gospel Radio, Inspirations Hair Studio, Deupree Family Foundation, Build-A-Bear, Covenant House, DEWLYN, Nicholas House, American Woodmark, Safety Net, Within Our Reach, Kate's Club by providing weekly virtual mental health, suicide prevention and resiliency workshops that successfully reached 10,250 participants/attendees which includes school administrations in: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties, as well as 1000 in Florida unnamed Counties. This program resulted in zero suicides, educated and empowered communities, as well as inspired progress toward a culture of health by attaining the best suicide prevention outcomes possible in a community-based suicide prevention utilizing multi-level prevention systems and providing accessible and affordable evidence-based training to diverse populations. It would also contribute to creating healthy communities and lifestyles by cultivating the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion proven to increase healthy choices and behaviors.

SDp3 will create value, build opportunities, and/or strengthen capacity for our organization in the near future by:
With the help of various community and organizational partnerships, Self-Discovery has built relationships with foundations, planning councils, community resource networks, local, regional, and national businesses. The organization continues to expand in the Atlanta metropolitan area to include surrounding communities, to deepen its connection to those living with mental illness. Most recently Self-Discovery has filmed in a documentary in the downtown Atlanta area to develop initiatives that utilize media and art as a medium for community members hoping to gain a better understanding of mental illness, the importance of self-discovery, and overcoming adversity. The organization’s Purpose & Prosperity Book Publishing Company has also added value to local communities through panel discussion, radio broadcasting, suicide prevention events, and representation from authors of diverse and inclusive backgrounds. The publishing company inspires future generations and has built a community of leaders who are taken through a vigorous ambassador program to develop servant leadership and transitional skills in response to the growing skills gap that exists amongst employees. Self-Discovery’s training system also aims to aid in recession and COVID impact through internship opportunities that favor a mentorship approach to cultivate tomorrow’s leaders. Self-Discovery continues to increase capacity through its volunteer program and transition into online learning platforms to reach new markets and segment each subgroup to develop mental health initiatives that are most needed. The organization has also committed to an activity-based model that engages youth and compliments K-12 curriculum with enrichment activities that benefit students academically considering their social-emotional wellness and self-image.

SDp3 longer term investment is as follows:
Self-Discovery in response to current Mental Health America of Georgia data, would like to partner with the local prison system to have its published literary works as approved literature. Seeking to uncover mass incarceration and its literacy disparities, the organization aims to fund the prison library budget and leverage its involvement in CIT (Crisis Intervention Team) trainings to further connections between law enforcement, hospital emergency services, mental health providers and individuals with mental illness. The organization will also focus its efforts on the role of employers in supporting mental health and wellness, through training programs specific to the workforce and the disparities that exists to include anxiety and depression. Reestablishing communication models and offering corporate team building events and activities will allow for employee wellness and inclusivity through the organization’s adaptation of the Diversity and Inclusion Progression Framework. Seeking to also work with veterans, the organization will partner with the Wounded Warriors Project Odyssey program’s five-day mental health workshop to assist in the development of skillsets allowing warriors to achieve their goals.
The organization’s current collaborations and long-term efforts increases its need for technology for continued programming for its mentorship programs with collaborative technology that considers social-emotional skills and cognitive development for students. The organization’s shift into media also requires video production equipment to captivate audiences while also influencing critical thinking and literacy thus influencing viewer’s worldviews and change perceptions of mental health and the dehumanization that exists amongst those living with mental illness.