I entered the student data
I began by entering and organizing the middle school survey responses.
Youth perspective • Research • Community
Youth Suicide Prevention Belongs to All of Us.
As a high school senior, I know that young people deal with pressure at school, online, at home, and in their relationships. My research helped me understand that suicide is not only an individual or clinical issue. The world around us matters too.
I created this page to share what I learned through my PROSPER internship, the questions the research raised for me, and some of the ways all of us can help strengthen connection before someone reaches a crisis.
Meet Aiden Corso
I started with a spreadsheet. It turned into a much bigger project.
I am a high school senior and a PROSPER intern. My work has focused on youth suicide prevention, research, and community education.
My internship started with entering and organizing student survey data from Kemmerer Middle School. Once we began looking at what the responses meant, I became interested in the pressures young people face and why suicide needs to be understood as more than an individual mental health issue.
That first assignment led to research, a larger question, a literature review, and work toward a paper. I also traveled to Casper for the LaCROSSe Out Violence & Suicide event and saw how prevention could become part of a youth-centered community event.
How my research started
The data made me want to understand the story behind the numbers.
After I entered the Kemmerer Middle School survey data, we looked at what students understood before and after the training. That led me to ask what young people are dealing with, what helps them seek support, and what adults may not always see.
We discussed what the findings meant
The results raised questions about youth knowledge, help-seeking, social pressure, and support.
I moved into the research
I looked at research on social media, academic pressure, relationships, connectedness, and structural inequality.
The project kept growing
The work developed into a research question, a literature review, a search for possible journals, and a paper focused on suicide as a social issue.
Shared action
What Can All of Us Do?
If suicide is shaped by social conditions, then prevention cannot belong only to clinicians or crisis services. Every setting that shapes a young person’s life can become part of prevention.
Strengthen connectedness
Build relationships in schools, families, teams, faith communities, and neighborhoods where young people feel noticed and included.
Listen to young people
Create conversations grounded in communication, understanding, and acceptance, without deciding in advance what a young person should feel.
Look beyond the individual
Recognize the influence of academic pressure, digital environments, poverty, isolation, access to care, and community resources.
Make support visible
Help young people know which adults they can trust, where community resources are located, and how to contact 988.
Bring prevention into everyday spaces
Schools, sports, public spaces, community programs, and online networks can all support early conversations and connection.
Sustain the work
Community prevention must continue beyond a single event, campaign, training, or moment of crisis.
Research in the community
A Field Became a Place for Prevention.
I participated in the inaugural LaCROSSe Out Violence & Suicide event, held August 8–9, 2025, at the Casper Soccer Complex. I saw how sports, teamwork, and community activities could make space for conversations about mental health and suicide prevention.
250+young people reached
2days of activities and education
14community resource organizations
My future direction
Designing Communities That Strengthen Connection.
I want to study architecture and urban planning. While working on this research, I started thinking more about how the places we design affect the people who live in them.
Neighborhoods, schools, parks, public spaces, transportation, and community resources can make it easier for people to connect, or they can leave people feeling isolated and far away from support.
Architecture and urban planning are not usually called suicide-prevention fields, but I think good design can help create belonging, access, interaction, and healthier communities.
Place • Connection • Community
Youth perspective
Research cannot replace listening.
Relationships can contribute to both risk and resiliency. Support can be strengthened through communication, understanding, and acceptance.A central idea developed through Aiden’s research on youth distress and social connectedness.
988
Need help today?
Call, text, or chat 988.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available day and night for people experiencing emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, mental health struggles, substance-use concerns, or moments when they simply need someone to talk to. Conversations are free and confidential.