Our Mission
We work with people and organizations to support mental health, promote well-being, and address the problem of suicide through professional education, consultation, and supervision.
Our Vision
To help create a world where people listen to and value one another while also living lives that are personally meaningful and saturated with eudaimonic happiness.
Our Values
We value empathy, emotions, relationships, and mindsets. We believe in balancing the need to talk about pain, injustice, and trauma with the need to use our best coping skills to live well.
What is the Montana Happiness Project?
The Montana Happiness Project began when we realized that the opposite of an attempted or completed suicide is a meaningful, well-lived life. We teach professionals how to engage in suicide assessment, intervention, and prevention focusing on strengths while also teaching evidence-based happiness strategies everyone can use to live more fulfilling lives.
We believe mindsets matter. When someone reports feeling suicidal, the natural reaction is to think, “What’s wrong?” Instead of focusing too narrowly on what’s wrong, our holistic, strengths-based approach to working with youth and adults who are considering suicide provides an array of positive tools for mental health professionals, educators, physicians, and first-responders.
Our approach intentionally avoids toxic positivity. We acknowledge that life includes suffering and believe that coming alongside individuals and families in their pain is the best first step toward therapeutic outcomes. However, we also believe that everyone sometimes needs tools for being and staying positive in the face of life challenges.
Based on our strengths-based model, we help professionals recognize that human suffering and suicidal thoughts are natural parts of life. We offer positive assessment and intervention strategies tailored to specific needs, ages, and groups of people. We address the many myths surrounding suicide, including the popular notion that all suicides can (or should) be prevented.
Using our website, workshops, videos, publications, and consultation groups, we reach out to anyone interested in learning more about positive psychology, and its role in helping people live happier lives.
Why Engage with the Montana Happiness Project?
“I attended your Alabama workshop on Strengths-Based Suicide Assessment. Now, instead of fearing these discussions, I am honored to walk with people into considering their thoughts and having them know that I want them to live and am in their corner.”
“Your presentation, voice, and ideas are just what I needed.”
“[The speaker] was wonderful, very personable, sincere, and brought in ‘real world’ examples that illustrated [their] points wonderfully”
“Excellent, realistic and tangible information on suicide assessment and treatment plans.”
“What I liked most about this webinar was learning a better way to start a suicide assessment. Sometimes it can be uncomfortable and now I know a better way to ease into the tough questions.”
Who is the Montana Happiness Project?
The Montana Happiness Project is a group of mental health professionals who come from various backgrounds, theoretical orientations, and specialties. Our focus is to bring a strengths-based approach to suicide assessment, treatment, and prevention to the Rockies and beyond.