Project Butterfly, Inc. is an organization in the Grand Junction area comprised of young people for young people. Instead of creating an adult-led, top-down organization to address youth depression and self-harm, suicide and suicide ideation, we decided to ask young people about their thoughts on how to address this ever-increasing mental health crisis. A group of young people gathered for the first time on July 8, 2021 to bring their thoughts together about how to prevent another youth suicide. These young people are passionate, motivated, and have accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. They are trained as Ambassadors to act as referral agents with their peers. Ambassadors look for, listen to, engage, and refer hurting teens to local resources that are already in place.

This project is giving teen Ambassadors a sense of purpose, value, and belonging. One Ambassador states, “Project Butterfly has changed my life!” Another states, “I know what it’s like, I tried three times to kill myself. I want to help.”