From: andre cramblit <andrekar@...>
Subject: Preventing Teen Suicide (community)



Area counties try to prevent youth suicide

ANITA CLARK aclark@...
July 15, 2006
Gail Anderson sees some sad and lonely teenagers in her work as a school
psychologist in Green County.

Sometimes they turn to alcohol or drugs or sex for acceptance from other
teens. Sometimes they start thinking about suicide.

"They feel that they don't have any choice at that point," Anderson
said.

In hopes of preventing youth suicides, which take the lives of 50 to 60
Wisconsin people ages 10 to 19 each year, Green and Lafayette counties
are launching communitywide education and intervention efforts.

Those counties are among 10 sites statewide sharing a $1 million, three-
year federal grant named for a U.S. senator's son who committed suicide
at age 21.

"One of the key things is just to educate people about the degree to
which suicide and risk of suicide is an issue for our kids. Many people
aren't aware," said Shel Gross, director of public policy for the Mental
Health Association in Milwaukee County and project manager for the
grant.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death, after accidents, for
people 10 to 19 years old in Wisconsin. Risk factors include:

Living in isolated areas, where there are fewer mental health services
and there may be more stigma.

Keeping guns at home, where young people can get them and make an
impulsive, deadly decision.

Abusing alcohol or other drugs.

Gross said communities will work on ways to help young people make
decisions and solve problems so, for example, they can handle a romantic
breakup or a bad experience in school.

"Kids have to be able to think, 'This is not the end of the world,' " he
said.

Communities are wise to look beyond suicide rates, he said, because
deaths "are the tip of the iceberg of kids who are trouble in one way or
another."

That's precisely the concern in Lafayette County, where student surveys
have reported troubling numbers of young people in grades seven through
12 who have considered suicide or even made a suicide plan, said Debbie
Siegenthaler, director of the health department.

While neither county suffered any suicides by young people in 2004, the
last year for which the state has numbers, eight adults in Green County
and two in Lafayette took their own lives.

"In a very small rural county, any time there's a suicide, it has major
implications," Siegenthaler said. "Everyone knows everyone. It really
hits the community hard."

In Green County, Anderson is reviewing material that can be used to
train school staff members, other adults and students themselves to know
what to look for and how to respond if a friend is suicidal.

"Lots of times, kids are the ones who know there's something wrong," she
said, but they may not know what to do about it. Teaching young people
to listen actively and seek help from a trusted adult, one who's also
been trained, will "set up a safety net" for teens considering suicide,
she said.

Lafayette County has successfully used older teenagers to teach younger
ones about issues like tobacco use, a strategy it hopes to repeat in
suicide prevention education, Siegenthaler said.

"They respond better to high school students than they do to adults
coming in and barking at them," she said.

Susan Conlin Opheim, president of the group Helping Others Prevent and
Educate about Suicide (HOPES), endorsed the communities' efforts to head
off the heartbreak of youth suicides by involving the entire community.

"It's extremely important to remember this is a public health issue,"
she said. "I think they're right. If they have one person who dies by
suicide it impacts their whole community."

Other recipients of the $1,125,000 grant, named for the late Garrett Lee
Smith, son of Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon, are the Fond du Lac School
District, Sheboygan, Marathon County, Portage County, a Native American
community not yet selected, the Wisconsin School for the Deaf in
Walworth County, the Sparta area and Norwalk-Ontario-Wilton School
District and another site to be chosen.

The Mental Health Association in Milwaukee County is leading the effort
in partnership with the state Department of Health and Family Services,
the state Department of Public Instruction and the Medical College of
Wisconsin.

• Stop suicide If someone is threatening suicide:

Be direct. Talk openly about suicide.

Listen. Allow expressions of feelings.

Don't debate whether suicide is right or wrong, or whether feelings are
good or bad. Don't lecture on the value of life.

Don't dare him or her to do it.

Don't be sworn to secrecy.

Take action. Remove guns or stockpiled pills.

Get help from people or agencies specializing in crisis intervention and
suicide prevention. The national suicide hotline is 800-784-2433, which
is 800-SUICIDE.

Source: Community Suicide Intervention Task Force of Lafayette County


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