Conference to address sexual violence, suicide

Strengthening Community Through Healing and Hope is a conference on January 31 designed to addressing many of the factors that impact life in San Juan County
The conference will focus specifically on how to respond to sexual assault, suicide and substance misuse. It will include a full day of seminars, workshops, expert panels and speakers.
The keynote speaker is Elizabeth Smart, a Utah native and child safety advocate. The event begins at 8:30 a.m. on January 31 at the Utah State University Arts and Events Center in Blanding
Discussing suicide and sexual assault is not easy in any community. For faith communities, as well as the Navajo Nation and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, cultural traditions often treat conversations about death, mental health, and sexual violence as highly sensitive or even taboo.
Families and leaders may avoid speaking about these issues out of respect for tradition, fear of stigma, or concern that such conversations could bring shame or further trauma.
This silence can make it harder for survivors and their families to find safe spaces for healing and support.
The conference seeks to change that by equipping the community with the tools to open dialogue, reduce stigma, and support survivors in ways that honor cultural values while addressing urgent health and safety needs.
The coalitions hope to equip local community and faith leaders with the knowledge, tools, and networks required to respond effectively to
San Juan County’s isolation and economic challenges make these objectives especially critical. Communities are spread far apart, and residents.
The goal is that each community has trained leadership to provide local guidance and response when their community members reach out to them.
There are urgent challenges in San Juan County, including high rates of sexual assault, a growing suicide crisis among young adults, substance misuse, and barriers created by rural isolation.
Families in the county often face geographic distance, historic underinvestment, and limited access to local services, which makes it harder to receive timely support.
There are two specific areas affecting San Juan County with devastating results, that of sexual abuse and of suicide, and they are linked together.
Sexual violence (SV) in Utah is a serious public health problem affecting thousands of residents.  Studies suggest that 19.9 percent (one in five) of females in Utah and 6.5 percent (one in 15) of males in Utah will experience rape or attempted rape during their lifetime. Nearly one in three women will experience some form of sexual violence during their lives.
Sexual violence is the only violent crime in Utah that is higher than the national average.  The Utah state government spent more than $92 million on people known to have perpetrated SV, and only $569,000 was spent on efforts to prevent SV.
The stigma of sexual violence often revictimizes many of the survivors and their family with negative mental health, including suicidality, addiction, often using substances as an escape to self-medicate, attempting to cope with the symptoms of trauma and associated feelings of shame, and overall chronic health conditions.
Younger survivors may also experience poor academic performance which can influence GPA and graduation rates, which affect them into adulthood, and are also a contributing factor for loss of workplace productivity (in caregivers as well), and loss of income due to mental health, impacting the economy and personal well being.
Utah’s Public Health Indicator Based Information System does not have current San Juan County information as data is voluntarily given.  This presents an urgent problem, as sexual violence cases are often under-reported and is a contributing  factor to high cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.
The objectives of the 2026 Conference are to:
Destigmatize Conversations – Equip faith and community leaders with the language, tools, and confidence to address sexual assault and suicide ideation with compassion and evidence-based approaches, that encourage and help survivors report the abuse and obtain help.
Promote Whole-Body Healing – Highlighting and supporting mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health as interconnected aspects of recovery and resilience for survivors and their families when reporting abuse.
Bridge Building – Strengthen partnerships between community organizations, health systems, faith leaders, community leaders and prevention coalitions.
Practical Action Steps – Provide leaders with actionable strategies for prevention, survivor support, and community resilience.
They ask that faith and community leaders take their training back to their communities
and congregations, for open dialogue, dedicating at least one meeting or church service to helping community members and congregants to be open to learning more, and committing to one evidence based training or speaker.
These objectives are designed to expand the network of support and equip local leaders with the knowledge, tools, and networks needed to respond compassionately and effectively to sexual assault, suicide and substance misuse.
The mission of the Utah Women & Leadership Project is to strengthen the impact of Utah girls and women.
They serve Utah and its residents by 1) producing relevant, trustworthy, and applicable research; 2) creating and gathering valuable resources; and 3) convening training and events that inform, inspire, and ignite growth and change for all Utahns.
The program is housed in the Jon M. Huntsman School at Utah State University and in partnership with USU Extension, is the backbone organization of Bolder Way Forward. 
Bolder Way Forward is an initiative within the UWLP and is led by local volunteers within many county organizations and passionately driven to make a difference.
The conference has been in discussion for several years as many advocates look to make a lasting difference and increase whole body health and healing and help local communities.
Research has shown that for every dollar that is spent on prevention, $3 to $20 is saved in  intervention and postvention costs. Helping communities come together through community and faith leaders builds strong bridges, helps reduce SV and crime as well as builds survivors desire and capacity to begin to heal.
Healing reduces substance misuse and addiction that left untreated raises community cost in socio-supports and criminal costs, and can lead to more crime, suicide andfurther community detachment. 
The 2026 conference will directly affect San Juan County by creating healthier communities and reducing demand for community intervention future funds. Healing through coalition and research-based measures creates stronger and more proactive communities for generations to come that are self-sufficient and attract families.
The conference is possible through the kind donations of San Juan County Clean Energy Foundation, San Juan School District, San Juan County Health Department, The San Juan County Prevention, Action and Collaboration Coalition