MHA of Texas Leads the Way on Suicide Prevention Statewide

Mental Health America of Texas (MHAT) is the state’s longest-serving mental health education and advocacy group and the organization designated by the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the statewide Suicide Prevention Coalition to coordinate suicide prevention programming.
In 2010 with funding from DSHS, MHAT began working with Kognito to address the statewide need for suicide prevention education in high schools, adapting Kognito’s simulation for college faculty to a new audience of high school teachers. Hundreds of teachers from across the state participated in online focus groups to help shape the new professional development tool.

The Kognito/MHAT collaboration grew to include statewide access for Texas educators to three simulations: At-Risk for High School Educators, Middle School Educators (fall 2012), and Elementary School Educators (spring 2015). Kognito simulations are awarded 1 Texas Education Agency-approved continuing education credit.

To date, more than 189,000 Texas PK-12 educators have used Kognito simulations, which represents approximately one-third of all public school teachers statewide.