When Tulsa, Oklahoma experienced a teen suicide cluster in the late 1990s, Mike Brose, executive director of the city’s Mental Health Association, went looking for a way to help prevent future tragedies.

He quickly found TeenScreen and connected with our office. Soon after, Tulsa became the first community in the US to implement a voluntary depression screening program for adolescents.

After more than 10 years, the Tulsa program is still going strong. As Mike points out, every school – whether public or private — is aware of TeenScreen and they’ve all requested that his office make mental health screening available to their students.

Throughout, his commitment to teen suicide prevention has remained constant, with his focus on communicating with parents.

“There’s a continued effort to try to stress the importance of prevention and screening, so that we protect our teens and keep them safe,” he says.

Hear more from Mike about his community’s journey: the challenges, the successes and what he believes is most important.