It has taken some time, but Mental Health America (MHA) of Lancaster-Lebanon Counties' Suicide Prevention Conference has picked up steam. It's making a difference.

"The quality of the conference is improving," said Kim McDevitt, who's been MHA of Lancaster-Lebanon Counties' executive director for nine years. "This conference is so packed with such great education. Folks are fully engaged and asking good questions. It gives me hope when I see our community coming together year after year. We all have a responsibility in this. To see people continuing to come tells me they really care about (preventing) suicide."

The organization's seventh annual Suicide Prevention Conference will be conducted from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, at DoubleTree Resort, 2400 Willow Street Pike, Lancaster. This year's conference theme is "Hope in Action: A Community Approach to Suicide Prevention."

That Thursday's agenda will feature four one-hour breakout sessions, during which 16 topics will be addressed, including finding stillness, how faith and journaling bring peace to an anxious mind, hope beyond the visible, maternal mortality related to mental health, when clinicians grieve, and the power of sounds and spoken word. Delivering the keynote address will be Dr. Jay Breneman, who's the director of firearm suicide prevention for CeaseFire Pennsylvania.

Interested individuals can register for the Suicide Prevention Conference at  https://tinyurl.com/5n6hjpdy.

"We want to bring everyone together and give them the tools to see what prevention looks like," said McDevitt. "It's a lot of community building too. It's a very difficult subject matter, but people come together to talk about solutions. Like, 'What could we be doing differently? What could we be doing better?' No single organization can prevent suicide; it takes a community."

More than 270 individuals are expected to attend the conference, including health care and mental health care professionals, educators, company employees, faith leaders and community members.

"It's for everyone," said McDevitt, a resident of Manheim Township. "It's a really neat event. It's so heartfelt. You see people connecting and talking about a very difficult topic. I see people walking away with hope. Conversations continue beyond the conference. We have made progress with the stigma, but there are too many people still struggling in silence. It gives people insight and motivation, and they walk away with tools they can use right away."

In 2025, a total of 87 Lancaster County residents were victims of suicide, the highest total since 2012. This year, the locale is on pace to reduce that number.

"Suicide is very complicated," said McDevitt. "Not everyone who dies from suicide has a mental health issue. Prevention comes in detection and early intervention. I think our work has really forced a redirection of the stigma. Many folks still don't know the warning signs of suicide. Loneliness and social isolation increase the risk of suicide. Those are the types of things we're going to be talking about at the conference."

MHA of Lancaster-Lebanon Counties oversees the suicide prevention coalition, which established the conference in 2018. The organization, which employs six full-time staff members and six part-time staff members, has been operating for more than 70 years.

"We've been around for a very long time," said McDevitt. "A lot of people know us as 'MHA.' We've always been known for education, advocacy and support, and now I think we're going deeper."