Following the news that a 12-year-old student died last weekend, the Issaquah School District sent a flood of messages to school counselors.

In the first day back at school, extra staff helped counsel about 40 students. Administrators checked on teachers to make sure they, too. were helped.

Their actions helped ease the trauma, but they wouldn’t have been so well organized, if it weren’t for an action plan the Issaquah Community Network drafted in 2003, said chair Judy Brewer.

The small state-funded group is facing grave uncertainty this month, as lawmakers debate with the future of community networks throughout the state.

“We knew the handwriting was on the wall,” Brewer said. “It is really kind of scary.”

Even if the legislature decides to keep funding the community networks, which focus primarily on helping youth, Gov. Christine Gregoire proposes cutting back state funding and pushing the groups to form public-private partnerships.

The groups would have the legal backing of the government, but would be privately funded, Brewer said. “We need some funding to stay alive long enough to make that transition.”

Formed in the early ‘90s, the small group, which had an about $30,000 budget this year, was one of about 53 networks that came out of the Family Policy Council.

The goal was to create a 10-year improvement plan for human-services efforts within a community.

The 10 years passed, and 42 of the networks moved on with new goals about improving human services overall in their respective communities.

Today the Issaquah group is focusing on providing mini-grants and networking groups, such as the city, district and non-profits, invested in teens.

After two youths died from suicide in 2003, the group decided to make suicide a focus, and formed a suicide plan for Issaquah School District, Brewer said. “The principals have taken it, they’ve refined it.”

Principals are now applying the material to unexpected deaths and even traumatic non-death incidents, such as terrible car wrecks.