Shannon Decker

Executive Director & Co-Founder

Shannon Decker holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Idaho and has nearly twenty years of private and public teaching and administrative experience in Idaho, Nevada, and California. She is a mental health educator who facilitates various training opportunities to further the foundation’s mission of promoting mental health education and advocating for suicide prevention.

• Education

  • UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
    M.Ed. Educational Leadership, 2014

  • LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY
    B.A., Liberal Studies, 2005

  • Additional Studies:

    • University of Portland

    • Boise State University

    • Northwest Nazarene University

    • Sierra College

• Awards

  • Partner of the Year - Community Collaborative of Truckee Tahoe - 2024

  • Advocate of the Year - Idaho Federation of Families - 2017

  • Teacher of the Year - Ponderosa Elementary School - 2010

• Current Advisory/ Leadership

  • Truckee Tahoe Suicide Prevention Coalition Steering Committee

  • Truckee Police Department’s Chief’s Advisory Committee

  • Community Collaborative of Truckee Tahoe Leadership Team

  • Idaho Violent Death Reporting Advisory Board

• Past Advisory/ Leadership

  • United States Olympic and Paralympic Mental Health Task Force - Training Chair - 2020-2022

  • Project AWARE Coordinator & Nevada’s First Youth Suicide Prevention Coordinator - 2021-2022

  • Idaho Suicide Prevention Action Collective - 2018-2021

  • Idaho Suicide Prevention Coalition - 2015-2019

  • Idaho Resilience Project - 2018-2022

  • Western States Conference on Suicide Director 2017 & 2018

  • Author and Legislative Champion - HB 634 - Idaho’s Jason Flat Act - 2018

  • Boise Chief of Police's Community Advisory Panel in Boise - 2017-2020

• Current Collaboration

  • California

    • Tahoe Truckee Unified School District Wellness Partners

    • Know Overdose Nevada County Coalition

    • Mental Health Matters Nevada County Coalition

    • Youth Cannabis Messaging Group - NV County

    • Rx Drug Safety Coalition - Placer & NV Counties

    • Tahoe Alliance for Safe Kids (TASK)

    • Truckee Chamber of Commerce

    • North Tahoe Business Association, North Tahoe Chamber, & Tahoe City Downtown Association

  • Idaho

    • Region 3 Suicide Prevention Coalition - Idaho

    • Boise Chamber of Commerce

  • Utah

    • Utah Suicide Prevention Committee & Coalition

    • Park City Chamber of Commerce

  • Nevada

    • Nevada Suicide Prevention Coalition

    • Suicide Prevention Taskforce - Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention

  • Other

    • Linked by Legacy

    • American Association of Suicidology

• Past Collaboration

  • Idaho

    • Treasure Valley United Way Mental Health, Region 3, and Region 4 Round Tables

    • Region 4 Suicide Prevention Coalition

    • Region 4 Youth Behavioral Health Committee

    • Boise Kind Steering Committee

    • Idaho Lethal Means Task Force

    • Idaho Alliance for the Serious Mental Illness Death Penalty Exemption (IASMIE) Coalition

  • Utah

    • Summit County Suicide Prevention Coalition

    • Promise Park City - United Way of Salt Lake

    • Summit County Mental Wellness Alliance

  • Other

    • Colorado Suicide Prevention Coalition

    • American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

• Certifications

  • Be Sensitive, Be Brave for Suicide Prevention Facilitator - 2024

  • Be Sensitive, Be Brave for Mental Health Facilitator - 2024

  • VitalCog Suicide Prevention Facilitator - 2024

  • Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) - 2024

  • Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT) 200 - 2023

  • Trauma Sensitive Yoga Foundations - 2023

  • Caring Connections - Grief of Sudden and Unexpected Death - 2023

  • Community Resiliency Model (CRM) Facilitator - 2022

  • Motivational Interviewing - 2022

  • Suicide Death Investigation/ Psychological Autopsy - 2021

  • STRONG Curriculum Facilitator - 2019

  • Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) Summer Training Institute - 2019

  • Greenwood Associates Classification System (GACS) for Special Needs Consulting- 2019

  • Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) - 2017

  • safeTALK Facilitator - 2018-2021

  • Hope Squad Master Trainer - 2017-2024

  • Mental Health First Aid Facilitator - 2017

  • Peer Crisis Debriefing Facilitator -

  • Youth Mental Health First Aid Facilitator - 2016

  • Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Facilitator - 2016

  • Professional Ski Instructor - Level I - 2013

  • K-8 Multiple Subject Teaching Credential - CA, NV, ID

    • Brain Gym

    • Love and Logic

    • Crucial Conversations

• Thought Leadership/ Publications

  • Film Contributions

    • Running for Their Lives

    • Weight of Gold

  • Keynotes

    • TEDx - 2022

    • AAS - 2022

  • Panel Discussions

    • Hope Lives

    • BSD Postvention

    • NV conference

    • HBO

    • Mental Health in the Mountains

    • Know the Signs - Rural Communities

    • WSCOS

      • First Responders

      • Educators

    • Nampa

  • Podcasts

  • Publications

    • NPR

    • Olympic Coaches

    • Ski Area Managers

  • Television

• Special Projects

  • Program expansion - consulting & coaching

  • Sober Curious Campaign Development - 2025

  • University of Kentucky - Connecting and Networking for Suicide Prevention (CAN) Athletics - 2025

  • Impactful Trilogy Film Screenings - 2022-2024

  • Suicide postvention support and consulting for City of Boise and Boise School District 2023-2025

  • Impactful PD for Educators - NNU - 2023

  • Messaging Matters training with partners - 2023

  • Development of MentallyCovered On-demand Training Center

  • MentallyCovered Resource Development and Mini-Library Deployment

  • 988 Marketing and Awareness

  • Program Expansion - Paid College Internships and Mentoring - 2022

  • Bronco Bold - Suicide Prevention Training

  • Host Large Training Opportunities

    • Know Overdose -Train-the-TrainerTrain-the-Trainer in Spanish - 2024

    • safeTALK

    • QPR

    • CAMScare

    • CRM

    • Storytelling

    • Mental Health First Aid

    • Youth Mental Health First Aid

  • QPR US Ski and Snowboard

  • Adoption & Scaling of MHFA - USOPC

  • Suicide Postvention Training and Support for Shoshone Bannock Tribe

  • Coordination of 2018 update to Idaho’s suicide prevention plan - public/private partnership

  • Jason Flat Act - Idaho

  • Paper Tigers and Resilience Film Screenings

  • Resilience PD for Educators - NNU and BSU

  • UOP

  • Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline