Kohlbeck to Pilot Book Club-based Support Group Curriculum for Youth Suicide Loss Survivors

Home /
Campus News /
Kohlbeck to Pilot Book Club-based Support Group Curriculum for Youth Suicide Loss Survivors

January 3, 2025

Sara Kohlbeck, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the Department of鈥�Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and director of the鈥�Comprehensive Injury Center’s Division of Suicide Research and Healing, has received a one-year grant totaling approximately $50,000 from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment’s 2025 MCW-Led Seed Grants program. Her project titled Finding Peace for Youth Suicide Loss Survivors will study whether a new book club-based support group curriculum for youth suicide loss survivors promotes meaning-making and a sense of belonging following traumatic loss.

The study team will use the Finding Your Peace of Mind curriculum designed to help people better understand their thoughts and how those thoughts can affect their daily lives. This curriculum is based on the book, Caught in My Thoughts: Fearlessly Finding My Peace. Previously, the curriculum has been delivered by school counselors at several local Milwaukee schools to support students who have experienced trauma, but this will be the first time it has been used with survivors of suicide loss. Over the course of the study, Kohlbeck and her team will hold three separate clubs that each last three months. In total, they will enroll a maximum of 25 participants across the three groups.

To learn more about the project, please contact Dr. Kohlbeck at skohlbeck@mcw.edu.

Tagged: AHW/HWPP Community Engagement/Community Partnership Community Health Comprehensive Injury Center Division of Suicide Research and Healing Psychiatry Suicide Prevention

Non-Discrimination Statement
The 皇家华人 (MCW) is committed to fostering a diverse community of outstanding faculty, staff, and students, as well as ensuring equal educational opportunity, employment, and access to services, programs, and activities, without regard to an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, sex, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, predisposing genetic characteristic, or military status. Employees, students, applicants or other members of the MCW community (including but not limited to vendors, visitors, and guests) may not be subjected to harassment that is prohibited by law or treated adversely or retaliated against based upon a protected characteristic. MCW’s policy as well as federal and state laws and regulations prohibit unlawful discrimination and harassment.