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Let's see if this blog can be a useful tool as well: I would like your help. read these Goals and comment on how they can be improved, how work on each can be begun and/or done, or who might help in our efforts:
1) Education:
· Increase awareness of and competency in suicide prevention and treatment for first point-of-contact individuals/staff, education personnel, healthcare providers, clergy, healthcare providers, law enforcement, mental health professionals and social service personnel.
· Educate everyone, especially mental health personnel, healthcare providers, social service personnel, clergy, law enforcement personnel, and education personnel to ask about suicidal ideations and intentions.
· Increase public awareness that mental health care is a critical part of health care, along with reducing the stigma of seeking and/or receiving mental health care and the stigma of suicide
2) Access to care:
· Increase access to mental health care, including availability of care (outpatient and inpatient) and insurance coverage parity.
· Advocate for an accessible, comprehensive continuum of care for those at highest risk for suicide.
· Promote accessibility and utilization of suicide prevention services for victims of harassment and violence.
3) Encourage networks of relatives, friends, neighbors, and members of the faith community to decrease isolation, a high risk factor for suicide.
4) Improve collection and dissemination of suicide-related data.
5) Develop sustainable resources for implementing suicide prevention, intervention and post-intervention programs in Lake County and Illinois and evaluate their effectiveness.
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4 comments:
Great aspirations, but they seem almost unrealistic. Sorry to seem so negative, but what you have laid out almost seems like trying to climb a greased pole. Peer to peer counseling for teens would probably be helpful and even doable if you could get into the highschools (and get kids to stop picking on each other).
A quote I have on my wall at work (I have a number of them) says "Bite off more than you can chew, then chew it. Plan more than you can do, then do it" (from an unknown source). I have accomplished much with this sort of credo and we have a great group of folks on the task force, I think we can.
I think maybe starting with kids, like Jr. high age or sooner. We need to get these kids talking about emotions and how they can help each other. Don't waste your time on the parents because they're in total denial anyway. I think each school should have a social worker and not one that just sits in the office waiting for kids to come to them.
If you ask any group of high schoolers what kids are headed for trouble or talk about suicide, they could name a whole list. Kids should be the front line. School social workers need to have the guts to pull kids at risk out of class and say what the hell is going on? School is probably the best place to start. I think schools should spend less on sports and more on counseling services.
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