National Suicide Prevention Month Advocacy Guide

Approaches to Suicide Prevention

Suicide prevention requires a multifaceted approach: “There is no one way to go about suicide prevention,” says Dr. Wright. “However, we can begin with just the knowledge that it’s important. There’s a great deal of hesitancy to discuss suicide. People just don’t know much about it and don’t know the signs to look for.” 

Much of the work that is done in suicide prevention is centered on increasing public knowledge. “When we talk about suicide prevention at the individual level, we’re talking about raising awareness,” says Dr. Wright.  “We’re going into schools and into communities to talk about it. We also work with for-profit companies that want to address suicide. We come in and educate them on what suicide looks like and what they can do about it.”

Another approach to suicide prevention, according to Dr. Wright, is much simpler: “One of the things that we know about suicide is that removing the means of taking one’s own life is one of the most effective things we can do to prevent suicide,” he shares. “More than half of suicides are people taking their lives with guns. So, we promote gun locks and keeping your guns safe. For people that are in crisis, we encourage giving their guns to a trusted friend so that the guns are not in the house. We also give out prescription drug locking devices for the same reason.”

Youth and Suicide in the United States

“We all talk about social distancing, but we should be talking about physical distancing instead,” shared Dr. George Everly, a psychologist who is on the faculty at John Hopkins and the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a blog post written by Jim McCann, founder of 1-800-Flowers.com 

“Dr. Everly conveyed that although we want to avoid close contact with others from a physical distance perspective, this does not mean shrinking our social networks and sacrificing social interactions, especially those of us who may already be lonely,” wrote McCann.

The pandemic has been difficult for many, and our young people have not been immune. Social interaction has suffered loss, as has academic progress. These losses have compounded existing paralyzing pressures and anxieties many of our students face. 

In his Edutopia.org article In High School, the Kids Are Not Alright, California teacher David Tow writes, “I lost my first student to suicide not long ago…I was haunted, too—I still am—by the fear of a similar tragedy among my raw-nerved and anxious students.”

While Tow’s piece was written prior to the pandemic, his perceptions and advice are accurate. Tow writes, 

Based on my observations, the lives of the high school students I teach are hemmed in everywhere by social pressures and expectations: high-stakes testing, the looming shadow of college admissions, the fiercely competitive school system, the painful process of figuring out who you are, and the ubiquitous desire for peer acceptance. Add to this the unseen pressures—fractured or fragmented home lives, emotional or physical violence and abuse, struggles with substance use, legal problems, and the wide range of issues borne by the many immigrant communities across the country—and it makes for a period of unsustainable emotional distress. In recent weeks the constant pressure has meant dealing with student depression almost daily, and helping support those who I feel might be toeing the line of self-harm.

Tow’s Five Strategies for Promoting High Schoolers’’ Mental Well-being were put together with the help of mental health professionals and fellow teachers. After months of the pandemic’s effects on education, they seem more important than ever before: 

1. Ask “How are you doing?”—and mean it.
2. Set office hours. (These can be virtual if needed.)
3. Remember your Maslow [Heirarchy of Needs]…mental health trumps academic performance every time.
4. Consider what matters…regarding makeup work.
5. Use the professionals…teachers and all school staff (need) to get to know your on-site school psychologists or mental health counselors, or to find those very important names and numbers immediately.

Resources for Survivors of Suicide Loss

Loved ones struggling with the aftermath of suicide often wondered if—and how—they could have prevented it. It is important to recognize that suicide is ultimately a personal decision. Loved ones are not to blame; however, the grief process is often intense and complex.

The American Association of Suicidology has put together several helpful resources for survivors of suicide loss, including a toolkit, a list of support groups across the country, and Beyond Surviving: Suggestions for Survivors by survivor movement pioneer Iris M. Bolton