2025 Elevating Hope Summit
Taking Substance Use Disorder & Suicide Prevention to New Altitudes
March 19-21, 2025 | USU Eastern, Price, UT
View RecordingsRecap of the 2025 Elevating Hope Summit
The 2025 Elevating Hope Summit was hosted by Utah State University Extension's Health Education: Advocacy, Research, and Teaching (HEART) Initiative, the Southeastern Utah Health Department, and Four Corners Community Behavioral Health. This was the 7th annual Wellness Summit, held on March 19th with a Pre-Conference for Law Enforcement and First Responders as well as March 20th-21st for two days of the 2025 Elevating Hope Summit in Price, Utah. This event was a testament to the power of collaboration, bringing together health and well-being professionals, law enforcement, first responders, and community members to address the pressing issues of substance use disorder (SUD) and suicide prevention in our state. With the theme "Taking Substance Use Disorder and Suicide Prevention to New Altitudes," we created a space for meaningful discussions on innovative strategies, best practices, networking, and community-driven solutions.
The success of this summit was the result of extensive planning and the dedication of many. We hosted 19 expert presenters, engaged 265+ attendees, and facilitated vital connections through 16 community partner resource booths. Thanks to generous contributions from 10+ sponsors and individuals, we awarded 50+ scholarships, ensuring access for those who needed it most. Additionally, 30+ volunteers and the Utah State University Eastern team played a crucial role in delivering a seamless event. This summit underscored the commitment of our communities to preventing SUD and suicide through education, partnership, and action.
A huge thank you to all those who contributed, volunteered, held booths, sponsored, presented, and attended the summit with us in March! Thank you for learning with us and sharing this information with our communities to break down barriers to inspire hope, which in turn encourages the broad sharing that prevention works, treatment is effective, and people do recover!
Agenda
Event Features: Key features of the summit included keynote addresses (e.g., nationally renowned presenter, Sarah W. Gaer, Suicide Prevention & Trauma Response Specialist who presented on Soul Exhaustion and Soul Care for professionals), sessions on various aspects of substance use (e.g., data experts, peer support specialists) and suicide prevention (e.g., data experts, lethal means restriction), and CEUs up to 12.5 hours (12 hours for Social Work CEUs, including 3 hours for Suicide Prevention) that also fulfill many of the American Academy of the College of Nursing (AACN) competencies for nursing students. There were also be self-care breaks and resource booths.
Special Sessions: The pre-conference on March 19th was dedicated to law enforcement, first responders, and care teams, focusing on Psychological First Aid.
The afternoon of March 19th included a Professional Development Opportunity including Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR), and Narcan trainings!
Brief AgendaSchedule & Speaker DirectoryVideos
*View all available 2025 Elevating Hope Summit videos by clicking on the playlist button in the top right corner of the video or vist the entire playlist on YouTube.Note: To view the available pre-recorded videos from the Soul Exhaustion & Soul Care presentations, visit sarahgaer.com and to view the live-recorded Lethal Means Restriction for Suicide Prevention recording, visit ECHO Recordings & Slides.
Sponsors
The March 19th-21st 2025 Elevating Hope Summit, was brought to you by Utah State University Extension and the HEART Initiative, the Southeast Utah Health Department and Southeast Utah Harm Reduction Program, and Four Corners Community Behavioral Health and the Hope Squad of Carbon, Emery, and Grand Counties.
Thank you to our Hope Advocate Partners, including our Gold Sponsors: UROHC at Southern Utah AHEC, Utah State University Extension, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at USU (CHaSS) Community & Natural Resources Institute (CANRI); Silver Sponsor: NAT-SU Behavioral Health Services; and our Bronze Sponsors: Castleview Hospital, the Association for Utah Community Health (AUCH), and Padagis Naloxone!
Thank you also to our in-kind sponsors for providing the Sound Bath from the Southeastern Integrative Healing Arts Center and the Veterans Crisis Line for providing gun locks. Thank you to those that supported the Opportunity Drawing at the Summit, including: Carbon County Tourism, Emery County Tourism, Castleview Hospital, Carbon Medical Service, Gagon Family Practice, USU Eastern, USU Extension, and the Southeast Utah Health Department. A special thank you to our local restaurants for their participation as well: Juniper Kitchen, The Tangerine Eatery, Balance Rock Eatery & Pub, Helper Beer, Ponderosa Grill, and R Pizza Place.
Thanks to our partners at the USU Transforming Communities Institute for supporting up to 12 hours of Social Work Continuing Education Credits at the Summit!
Summit Image Gallery
