Empowering communities to prevent suicide and offering hope and healing to survivors.

Annual Conference

Kevin’s Song 8th Annual Conference on Suicide: Continuing the Conversation . . .

REGISTRATION OPENS NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Michigan’s highly regarded and largest conference on suicide — the Kevin’s Song Conference on Suicide: Continuing the Conversation . . . returns for its 8th annual event on January 25-27, 2024 at the St. John’s Resort located at 44045 Five Mile Rd. in Plymouth. 

The three-day conference will bring together educators, mental health professionals, professional trainees and students, business and community leaders as well as members of the public, survivors of suicide loss, and attempt survivors. The speakers and presentations will address all aspects of this public health crisis in an effort to better understand and prevent suicide.  The mission of the Kevin’s Song Conference on Suicide is to break down the barriers to build pathways to better models of prevention and treatment in order to save lives.

Here are just a few comments about the conference: 

“It has been my honor to attend each and every one of these annual events, and moreover, my attendance has enabled me to witness firsthand the growth and the energy generated by this meeting. The good that they are accomplishing on behalf of those bereaved by suicide and others is considerable and occurs year-round; their footprint is in Michigan, where they have risen to prominence as an influential suicide prevention organization, and it is growing beyond Michigan regionally and nationally.”
– Thomas Joiner, PhD, The Robert O. Lawton Distinquished Professor of Psychology, Florida State University

“I have been involved with the Kevin’s Song conference for quite a few years and have watched it grow from a small, tightly knit local effort to a large, tightly knit national effort.  Each year this conference gets bigger and each year more amazing things happen because of this conference.”
– Bart Andrews, Ph.D. Chief Clinical Officer, BHR

Mark your calendars for the 2024 Conference.  It promises to equip mental health professionals, educators and suicide prevention advocates with the latest evidence-based and influenced clinical and lived experience, knowledge, and tools to support those at risk of suicide.

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2023 Saving A Life Award Honorees

Recipients exemplify outstanding service to the community in Suicide Prevention. Past recipients have been individuals who have made a significant difference in the lives of citizens in crisis.

2023 Individual Honoree:

Amelia Lehto – Chief of Staff and Director, National Center for the Prevention of Youth Suicide American Association of Suicidology


Amelia has worked in crisis services and suicide prevention for the past 15 years. She is a past Chair of the Crisis Centers Division of the American Association of Suicidology Board of Directors, where she spent time transforming the division, establishing the Crisis Services Committee, and welcoming new membership into the organization. She specializes in crisis service quality improvement, suicide prevention initiatives, postvention support group development, and facilitation skills. Additionally, she consults on social media strategy and policy, development, management, and customer engagement. Amelia is recognized as a leader in suicide prevention and postvention on the local, state, and national levels.

She is an advisor and past President of Michigan-based nonprofit, Six Feet Over, which provides financial and supportive services to families and loved ones following the suicide loss of their person. Amelia is also an advisory council member, conference committee member, and Survivor of Suicide Loss Support Group co-founder to Kevin’s Song. She has consulted with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Live Through This Project; Google; TikTok; and The S Word documentary. She has also served as a Certified American Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED Instructor and a LivingWorks Education ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) and suicideTALK Master Trainer.

After experiencing loss at a young age, she discovered that one is not defined by how they died, but how they lived.

Congratulations to Amelia Lehto, 2023 Individual Honoree of the Kevin’s Song Saving a Life Award, for her steadfast commitment to saving lives and for her outstanding service to the community.

2023 Organizational Honoree:

Zero Suicide Team – CNS Healthcare


The Zero Suicide team at CNS Healthcare oversees suicide care for over 400 people in Oakland, Macomb, and Wayne counties in a community mental health setting. Kiersten Gutherman, Tabitha Welch, Sara Kadish, Lydia Lamba, and previously Riley Juntti are wholeheartedly invested in their suicide prevention work. The team has conducted many trainings for internal staff, external agencies, and organizations in the community. Kiersten and Tabitha are members of the Oakland County Suicide Prevention taskforce, the Governor’s Challenge reducing access to lethal means subcommittee, With One Voice, Michigan Association for Suicide Prevention, and attend all Michigan Suicide Prevention meetings.

Two team members have presented at international conferences on topics specifically about underserved and understudied populations. The team is dedicated to making sure suicide prevention is not thought of with a “one size fits all” approach. Some members of the team bring their lived experience with suicidal ideation to their work, which helps them inform research, reduce stigma, and reinforce the idea of recovery. The team emphasizes the importance of sharing research and interventions that have been specifically designed for populations such as people of color, the LGBT community, and individuals with autism.

The team’s most triumphant achievement is their work in suicide prevention by reducing access to lethal means. The team sought out research on the cutting edge of suicide prevention and devoted their efforts toward reducing access to lethal means. They have accomplished this by creating a sustainable program to give out free gun locks, medication lock boxes, and information about suicide prevention resources to community members.

Congratulations to The Zero Suicide team at CNS Healthcare, as the first organizational recipient of the Kevin’s Song Saving A Life Award for demonstrating how organizations, big or small, can mobilize communities and make a difference in preventing suicide and saving lives.

SAVE THE DATE and BECOME A SPONSOR

2024 Conference on Suicide

Since its founding, Kevin’s Song has grown to become a leader in the suicide education and prevention effort in Michigan and beyond. With your help, we have accomplished so much to fight the suicide epidemic.  The support from our sponsors has enabled Kevin’s Song to work to engage communities to prevent suicide and to offer hope and healing to providers.  We need your financial support to carry on our efforts.  To become a sponsor of the 2024 Conference on Suicide click on the Sponsorship Kit below.

“It has been my honor to attend each and every one of these annual events, and moreover, my attendance has enabled me to witness firsthand the growth and the energy generated by this meeting. The good that they are accomplishing on behalf of those bereaved by suicide and others is considerable and occurs year-round; their footprint is in Michigan, where they have risen to prominence as an influential suicide prevention organization, and it is growing beyond Michigan regionally and nationally.”
– Thomas Joiner, PhD, The Robert O. Lawton Distinquished Professor of Psychology, Florida State University

“I have been involved with the Kevin’s Song conference for quite a few years and have watched it grow from a small, tightly knit local effort to a large, tightly knit national effort.  Each year this conference gets bigger and each year more amazing things happen because of this conference.”
– Bart Andrews, Ph.D. Chief Clinical Officer, BHR

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MEMORIAL FOREST

 

The MEMORIAL FOREST was created for the Kevin’s Song Fourth Annual Conference on Suicide to help us remember and honor some of the people who have died by suicide and to offer solace to those who were left behind. This Memorial Forest, which will be a virtual respite during the 2022 Conference of Suicide and School Summit, is made possible through the many generous donations to Kevin’s Song in memory of Adam Elbadawi.

 

Since 2020, Kevin’s Song has collected over 600 names in memory of a loved one lost to suicide or to honor a survivor, and have inscribed the names on a Kevin’s Song bird which decorated the trees during the recent conference. 

“It has been my honor to attend each and every one of these annual events, and moreover, my attendance has enabled me to witness firsthand the growth and the energy generated by this meeting. The good that they are accomplishing on behalf of those bereaved by suicide and others is considerable and occurs year-round; their footprint is in Michigan, where they have risen to prominence as an influential suicide prevention organization, and it is growing beyond Michigan regionally and nationally.”
– Thomas Joiner, PhD, The Robert O. Lawton Distinquished Professor of Psychology, Florida State University

“I have been involved with the Kevin’s Song conference for quite a few years and have watched it grow from a small, tightly knit local effort to a large, tightly knit national effort.  Each year this conference gets bigger and each year more amazing things happen because of this conference.”
– Bart Andrews, Ph.D. Chief Clinical Officer, BHR