Your Life Matters!

The Faith Communities Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s has launched the Your Life Matters! Campaign. This Campaign provides faith communities of every tradition, philosophy, sect or denomination, an opportunity to celebrate life, hope, and reasons to live. Each faith tradition is encouraged to dedicate one Sabbath each year to this message of hope!

Faith communities are in a unique position to reach a very large portion of the millions of Americans who struggle with serious thoughts of suicide each year. Many people feel hopeless, trapped, or are in such emotional pain or despair, that they struggle to face another day.

The Your Life Matters! Campaign features a continually growing website where faith leaders can find the information and resources they need to help prevent suicide. It includes:

communications aids;
worship and spiritual resources suitable for each of the major faith traditions in the U.S.;
a compendium of other resources to assist faith communities in promoting mental and spiritual health, reducing suicide risk, and,
if tragedy strikes, tools for supporting the needs of congregants, family, and friends after a suicide event.

The Faith Communities Task Force hopes to grow the web-based resource over the coming months. The Task Force invites you to submit other materials—prayers, meditations, and liturgies; sermons, homilies, reflections, and related resources; and scriptures and sacred texts—that may be added to the campaign website. The task force can be reached via email at your-life-matters@edc.org.

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention is the public-private partnership working to advance the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and make suicide prevention a national priority. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, through the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) operates the Secretariat for the Action Alliance, which was launched in 2010 by former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates with the goal of saving 20,000 lives in five years.