The JEH Foundation
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Fort Worth, TX
Chairpersons: Tom and Ellen Harris
Executive Director: Matthew Vereecke
What Role We Played
The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation (JEH) in collaboration with the M2G Mental Health Initiative hosted a two-and-a half-day conference in April 2024
to bring together some of the nation’s leading researchers and community foundations committed to the prevention of suicide.
Carter Research designed, developed, and delivered a multi-day conference to facilitate an open and honest conversation about the limits of suicide prevention activities today, what we have learned through research, and how to leverage that learning to save more lives.
The overall purpose of this meeting was to build on the success of The JEH Summit 2023 and create a new collaborative environment in which research and community action come together, inform each other’s work, and figure out how to create a world in which suicide is never the choice — starting first with Fort Worth and the rest of north Texas.
Why This Matters
- Collaboration is a key aspect to moving the needle in the work of suicide prevention — and both practitioners and researchers need forums like the Summit to do that.
- Specialization is critical to research, but is not as helpful to prevention.
- Researchers need to understand that no one approach will address the needs of all those who suffer with suicidal ideation (let alone the effects of death by suicide).
- There need to be unifying organizations (and opportunities such as the Summit) that bring together the various research findings into a coherent strategy to advance suicide prevention.
- During the Summit the JEH Foundation set out its “Community Vision” and how it aims to prevent a larger number of suicides by engaging differently with the local community of Fort Worth, Texas. It is through increasing both the total number and the quality of the institutions and relationships involved in suicide prevention that we have the best chance of improving the success of suicide prevention activites in the days ahead.
