After an especially tough school year in Colorado regarding youth suicides, the state attorney general’s office will fund new prevention initiatives to help teens statewide.

The initiative will help up to 40 additional schools in Colorado adopt a national program that uses “peer connectors,” students who are trained to identify depressed and suicidal youth on social media and at school and then link them to adults.

The attorney general’s office will spend $200,000 to expand the Sources of Strength program, which is already in about 100 Colorado schools, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman announced Tuesday in Pueblo, one of four counties in the state with the highest rates of youth suicide.

The office also will spend $173,000 to study suicides and suicide attempts among youth in those four counties, which also include El Paso, La Plata and Mesa. The point is to find out the best methods for preventing youth suicide and how to use state funds most effectively, Coffman said.

Read the full article about suicide prevention initiatives in Colorado by Jennifer Brown at the Denver Post (via Chalkbeat).