The conference begins Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Brescia University Science Building Lecture Hall, 629 Frederica St., with a presentation from Shawn Christopher Shea, M.D., an internationally acclaimed innovator and speaker in the fields of suicide prevention, building resiliency, and clinical interviewing. Dr. Shea will share thoughts from his critically acclaimed book on creating resiliency in difficult times, Happiness Is. The Thursday evening session is free and open to the public with no pre-registration required.

On Friday, the conference continues with a day geared for professionals, including psychiatrists, counselors, psychologists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, case managers, substance abuse counselors and all mental health trainees. Dr. Shea will present Unlocking Suicidal Secrets: New Thoughts on Old Problems.

The full-day workshop provides front-line clinicians with the state of the art skills necessary to tackle some of the most difficult clinical situations facing experienced clinicians regarding suicide assessment and prevention, documentation of risk, treatment planning and building resiliency.

The Friday session will be held at Owensboro Christian Church, 2818 New Hartford Rd., from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Cost of the workshop is $45 and earns six continuing education units (CEUs). A light breakfast will be provided; lunch on your own.

Pre-registration is required. Visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SheaUnlockSuicidalSecrets

Dr. Shea is the creator of the highly acclaimed interviewing strategy for uncovering suicidal ideation and intent – the Chronological Assessment of Suicide Events (the CASE Approach). His other clinical interviewing innovations, including facilic supervision, macrotraining, and the Medication Interest Model (MIM) have been adopted around the world with his writings being translated into a variety of languages as diverse as French, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese.

Dr. Shea is the author of six books and numerous articles including one of the classic texts in the field of suicide prevention, The Practical Art of Suicide Assessment. Both editions of his book, Psychiatric Interviewing: the Art of Understanding, have been chosen by the Medical Library Association for the Brandon/Hill List as one of the 16 most important books in the field of psychiatry.

The Ninth Annual ORSPC Community & Professional Conference is sponsored by Owensboro Health, River Valley Behavioral Health, and Glenn Funeral Home and Crematory.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (April 18, 2013) – Last year, the Army’s suicide rate peaked to astronomical levels, as the service reported more than 320 suicides. The increase in the number of reported suicides set off various alarms with the Army’s senior leadership, and prompted the service to take a closer look at its suicide prevention program.

To ensure that those numbers are decreased in 2013, the Army has worked to ensure that all leaders are familiar with the resources available to at-risk Soldiers and other community members.

Fort Bragg is no different.

According to Lt. Col. Kevin Willis, manager, XVIII Airborne Corps Suicide Prevention Program, the goal of the Fort Bragg program, as directly related to the Army Suicide Prevention Program, is to prevent suicide among Soldiers, family members and civilians.

Willis pointed out that in accordance with ARMY DA PAM 600-24: Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention, suicide prevention is described as a continuum of awareness, intervention, and postvention to help save lives. Ultimately, the goal of prevention is to develop healthy, resilient Soldiers to the point where suicide is not an option.

He said it is important to establish a culture that reinforces help-seeking behavior as an appropriate and widely accepted part of being responsible.

Continue reading at www.army.mil: Suicide prevention: Resiliency key to overcoming threat to Army ranks

Posted: Thursday, April 18, 2013 12:00 am

by DAVID CRARY AP National Writer

NEW YORK — They look intently at the camera, some impassively, some with smiles, all of them aware that they’ve just shared with an online audience a most personal story: Why they tried to kill themselves.

By the dozens, survivors of attempted suicide across the United States are volunteering to be part of a project by a Brooklyn-based photographer, Dese’Rae Stage, called “Live Through This” — a collection of photographic portraits and personal accounts.

It’s one of several new initiatives transforming the nation’s suicide-prevention community as more survivors find the courage to speak out and more experts make efforts to learn from them. There’s a new survivors task force, an array of blogs, some riveting YouTube clips, all with the common goal of stripping away anonymity, stigma and shame.

“Everyone feels like they have to walk on egg shells,” says Stage, who once tried to kill herself with self-inflicted cuts. “We’re not that fragile. We have to figure out how to talk about it, rather than avoiding it.”

Such conversations are proliferating.

In January, the American Association of Suicidology launched a website called “What Happens Now?” — described as the first sustained effort by a national prevention organization to engage survivors in a public forum. It features a blog, updated weekly, with contributions from survivors sharing their experiences and often using their real names.

In one of the latest posts, the founder of a respite home for suicidal people writes powerfully about her own suicide attempt eight years ago, involving both pills and a kitchen knife, and about the contributions that survivors can bring to prevention efforts.

“Survivors have a unique perspective on what life’s like down in the deep, dark hole,” writes Sabrina Strong, executive director of Waking Up Alive in Albuquerque, N.M. “We found our way out… We’re not afraid to crawl down in the dark hole with someone else.”

Seeking to encourage those types of contributions, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention — a federally funded public-private partnership — has formed a first-of-its-kind task force comprised of prevention experts and survivors. It plans to issue recommendations this fall for how practitioners and organizations in the prevention field can “engage and empower suicide attempt survivors.”

One of the task force co-chairs is psychologist John Draper, project director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a network of centers that field calls from emotionally distressed and potentially suicidal people.

According to studies cited by Draper, about 7 percent of survivors later kill themselves, a far higher rate than for other groups.

“Yet that means 93 percent go on to live out their lives,” he said. “We’ve got to talk to them, engage then, find out what is bringing them hope and keeping them alive.”

The other co-chair is Eduardo Vega, the survivor of a suicide attempt who is now executive director of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco.

“Nobody can speak to the issues, the sort of agony, even the decision-making that goes on when you’re actively suicidal so much as somebody who’s been there, and can relate to all that’s going on in a nonjudgmental way,” Vega says in a recent video. “That’s the sort of magic that will make a difference.”

In past decades, the stigma surrounding suicide was intense, and most people who tried to kill themselves avoided any public disclosures about their experiences. There was far more involvement in the prevention movement by bereaved relatives of people who completed a suicide.

Among them was Michelle Linn-Gust, whose sister killed herself at 17 and who, in her current role as president of the American Association of Suicidology, helped launch the “What Happens Now?” website.

“The bereaved, the people who’ve lost someone, like me, that movement has taken off,” Linn-Gust said. “But the attempt survivors have not had a voice. Nobody has given them a home.”

Over the years, individuals who had attempted suicide would surface occasionally, writing books or going on the public-speaking circuit to share their experiences. One such communicator is Kevin Hines, who became a prolific writer and speaker after surviving a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge in 2000. A survivor in Canada, David Granirer, has carved out a specialty as a stand-up comedian whose monologues address depression and mental illness.

Among Granirer’s routines is a feigned phone conversation in which he unsettles a smarmy telemarketer. “I’m so depressed,” he says. “If you hang up, I’ll kill myself.”

What’s new in the past couple of years is a broader phenomenon — a surge of collective projects by survivors, corresponding with a keener and more systematic interest by prevention experts in their potential contributions.

“The voices of people who have thought about suicide and possibly attempted suicide have been largely absent from public conversations about suicide and what should be done about it,” says Karen Butler Easter, president of National Association of Crisis Center Directors. “They know what hurts, and they know what helps.”

One asset that survivors say they can supply is candor.

“We are willing to speak truthfully, even if others are afraid to,” writes Sabrina Strong in her recent blog post. “We understand that we do others a disservice by providing generic and whitewashed advice from the school of magical thinking — ‘Things will get better.’ ‘Everything’s all right.’

“Sometimes things don’t get better, at least not right away.”

Historically, prevention specialists made relatively little effort to seek input from people who tried to kill themselves. Experts say treatment often was — and in some cases still is — condescending, and at times harsh and punitive.

“The attitude was that if a person tried to kill themselves, they were irresponsible, they were not people we could trust, and we knew what’s better for them,” said John Draper. “There also was some concern that they might kill themselves if we engaged them.”

Those attitudes have evolved in recent years, with more interest in collaborative treatment. Yet prevention experts say many therapists lack specialized training in how to deal with survivors and balk at treating them because their above-average rate of eventually killing themselves prompts fear of malpractice suits by their families.

Among those serving with Draper and Vega on the new task force is Heidi Bryan of Neenah, Wis., who survived a suicide attempt in the 1980s and whose brother did kill himself.

Bryan, 55, has been active for more than a decade in suicide-prevention initiatives, and has observed notable changes in how experts view survivors.

“I remember sitting at a conference when speakers were talking about survivors — it was like we were lab rats,” she said. “Now they’re finally realizing maybe we should be brought in on this. We need to erase the misperceptions that people have about us, so we’re treated with the respect we deserve.”

Even amid the excitement over changing attitudes, prevention experts caution that many survivors are likely to remain wary of sharing their stories in public, notably for fear it might affect their employment prospects.

“There are still clear consequences for talking about your mental health history,” said Jane Pearson, a suicide prevention expert with the National Institute of Mental Health. “It’s getting better, but there are still challenges as to what that means for your life.”

To help survivors think through the consequences of sharing their story, major prevention organizations recently teamed up to offer guidelines and suggestions. Their document urges survivors to be sure they and their families are emotionally prepared for such disclosures, and to be braced for the likely widespread dissemination of any personal accounts via social media.

In the two years she’s been working on “Live Through This,” Dese’Rae Stage says only one of her subjects has had a change of heart and asked not to be publicly identified. Meanwhile, she says she now has a waiting list of 200 suicide attempt survivors who want to participate.

Stage, 29, said she periodically tried to injure herself as a teenager, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2004, and attempted suicide — through multiple cuts of her veins — in 2006 while struggling with an abusive relationship. The attempt occurred not long after she graduated from East Tennessee State University, where her psychology studies included research about suicide.

Stage began taking photographs for “Live Through This” in 2011. She’s ready to spend another year or more on the project, with the hope of visiting subjects across the country and eventually crafting the material into a book.

“The survivors who share their stories here are real people who have been through hell,” Stage writes in a summary of the project. “They are also engaging, fascinating people whose voices deserve to be heard.”

Stage notes that suicide, according to federal data, is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S.

“I’m convinced that the simple act of getting people to talk about it will save lives,” she writes. “It’s a serious public health issue, and one we can do something about if we can just set our fears aside.”

Among Stage’s subjects is Caitlin Coleman, 30, who tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills 10 years ago while battling depression as a college sophomore in Columbus, Ohio.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends, and felt increasingly isolated,” she recalled. “It got to the point where it was a good day if I could get out of bed and go to Starbucks.”

Her suicide attempt left Coleman hospitalized in a coma, and during a lengthy recovery she became frustrated at the lack of resources that included input from other survivors.

“I wanted to talk to people who went through the same thing I did and I couldn’t find anyone,” she said

She heard about “Live Through This” through a friend, and was exhilarated when she checked out the website, thinking, “This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

She is at peace with the fact that the project means her name, photo and personal story are now displayed on the Internet.

“I’m pretty open about my past,” she said. “It’s not something I’d say on a first date, but if the topic comes up I don’t shy away from it. I don’t believe it’s anything to be ashamed of.”

In college, Coleman was aspiring to a career in musical theater. For now, she’s content with a job as a waitress in New York City, but she misses performing enough to be taking lessons in comedy improvisation.

“Now I feel like I’m at a really good, functional point in my life,” she says. “Are there things that I’m still fearful of? Yes. But I want to speak to people.”

===

Online:

American Association of Suicidology’s “What Happens Now?” blog: http://attemptsurvivors.com/

Guidelines for suicide attempt survivors who want to share their story: http://bit.ly/10Bv8Db

Live Through This: http://livethroughthis.org/

===

By James Mayse
Messenger-Inquirer | Posted: Monday, January 14, 2013 12:00 am

There were slightly fewer suicides in Daviess County in 2012 than in 2011.

While the decline in suicides is good news, the members of the Owensboro coalition working to educate the public on how to help prevent suicide say there is more work to be done.

There were 18 suicides in 2012, three fewer than in the county in 2011, Daviess County Coroner Jeff Jones said. Still, the number of suicides last year was much higher than the number in the years before 2011 — in 2010, there were 12 suicides in the county, and there were 13 in 2009.

Officials say they don’t know why the number of suicides might have declined. In 2010, the last year for which statics were available, Daviess County had a suicide rate of 16.5 suicides per 100,000 individuals, said Mike Flaherty, chairman of the Owensboro Regional Suicide Prevention Coalition. The state average for the 2010 was 14.5 suicides per 100,000 residents, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Flaherty said suicide is still considered taboo. But being able to talk about suicide, especially with people who appear to need help, is one of the best ways to prevent suicides.

“We still find there’s a lot of stigma associated with suicidal behavior,” Flaherty said. “We educate people to see it’s more of a community health problem than anything.”

There’s no one reason people commit suicide, Flaherty and Jones said.

“It’s a complex behavior. People try to make sense of this and want an answer. The best we (can do) is understand the risk factors. The more risk factors there are, and the more serious factors there are,” the greater the person’s risk of suicide, Flaherty said.

According to the American Association of Suicidology, depression is believed to be a factor in 60 percent of all suicides.

“The most significant factor is depression,” Flaherty said — but other types of mental illnesses also play a role; 90 percent of all suicide victims were people suffering from some type of mental health condition.

Another factor is substance abuse, Flaherty said.

“One of the high risk factors is if someone had a drug or alcohol problem or their they’re intoxicated at the time” they attempt to commit suicide, Flaherty said. One-third of suicides are by people who are later determined to have been intoxicated at the time of the incident.

Jan Ulrich, suicide prevention coordinator for the U.S. Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities, said previously there are multiple risk factors.

Although there are many reasons people consider or attempt suicide, the best way to help prevent suicide is to not be afraid to discuss it with people you believe are at risk, Flaherty said.

“It has been shown if a suicidal person talks to anyone who guides them to help, that’s extremely successful in (reducing) the risk” that the person will try to harm themselves. If you feel a person is strongly considering suicide, take them to the hospital, Flaherty said.

“It’s best to go with them and be there for them,” Flaherty said. “Sometimes, just that sign of support is effective.”

People looking for help or needing someone to talk to about feelings of suicide should call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-TALK. Local help can be found by calling RiverValley Behavioral Health’s crisis line at 684-9466.

James Mayse, 691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com