Tag: lifestyles & health

What does it mean to “promote the positive” in suicide prevention?

When we are inundated with discouraging data about increasing suicide rates and tragic stories of suicide loss, our hearts are moved to the urgency of the need to “do something;” however, sometimes we feel hopeless that we can ever get in front of this daunting issue.

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention put forth guidelines that help us understand a framework for successful messaging about suicide prevention and suggests the following:

Call to action: Let people know there are specific actions that people can take that can make a difference — for themselves, for people they care about and for the larger society. When we make these directives specific to the audience we are hoping to motivate to action, they are more likely to be effective.

Prevention Works: Sharing positive messages about suicide prevention means sharing the science about what is working. Our understanding of what helps people — from medication to treatment to environmental changes — is improving all the time. How can we share these findings in ways that the public can understand?

Resilience and recovery are happening: Stories of hope and healing are some of our best weapons in the war against suicide.

Effective suicide prevention programs exist: How can we enroll systems in our public health approach to suicide prevention? We need to let them know that they play a vital role in the comprehensive approach and that they can implement programs and trainings to help shift the needle.

Help is Available: By promoting resources for crisis intervention, mental health services and peer support, we let people know that there is hope in the darkness.

When we change the public narrative to hope, connectedness, social support, treatment and recovery we can transform systems from helplessness to inspiration. We don’t need to minimize the pain or the social injustice that drives despair to do this.

About Dr. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler
In this podcast, we hear some powerful insights from Dr. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, the associate professor for public health, Medical University of Vienna (Austria), Center for Public Health, Institute of Social Medicine and the head of unit suicide research & mental health promotion, Medical University of Vienna (Austria), Center for Public Health, Institute of Social Medicine.

He is a lead researcher helping us understand the Papageno Effect, a potentially protective effects of specific positive messaging, especially related to stories of people who live and grow through personal experiences with suicidal intensity. This preventive framework of messaging is in contrast to the Werther Effect, which has helped us understand the messaging concerns that come with the increased risk of negative exposure effect of risky messaging. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/18

How do we communicate about suicide with teens? Perhaps, they are the ones in the best position to tell us.

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The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention recommends strategy, safety and a positive narrative when messaging about suicide. Messages and images that encourage hope are better than ones that imply “nothing can be done.” Messages that celebrate resilience, healing journeys and compassion are better than ones that romanticize death or are voyeuristic or sensationalized. Messages that inspire action like reaching out or offering compassion are more valuable than ones that perpetuate misinformation and myths.

In this podcast we learn some best practices in enrolling our youth to be these positive, safe, and effective messengers for suicide prevention and mental health promotion.

Stan Collins is the Co-Founder and Program Manager of Directing Change Student Film Contest and Program. This program invites high school students to create 60-second films about suicide prevention and mental health. These films are by, about and for youth suicide prevention and mental health promotion advocates. We discuss the notion that youth are uniquely positioned to make cultural and systems change because they have a purity in their passion to make the world a better place and because they are not scared to get in touch with empathy.

Often teens’ fearlessness to stand up for what is right is inspiring to all.

During the interview, Stan shares his personal journey through suicide loss as a teen into his national leadership roles today. He shares three best practices to youth who are working on their own school and community mental wellness campaigns:

Always share vetted resources — like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Crisis Text Line.
Rather than only reinforcing a dramatic narrative around suicide death data that could lead people to feel hopeless, cultivate a positive social norm about help-giving and help-seeking.
Avoid any description or image about the means of suicide or death scene. These depictions are not the point of the message.
Remind people of their reasons for living and options to reduce misery.
Don’t oversimplify causes of suicide or pathways to recovery. Sustained support and comprehensive wellness are key.
Get trained in suicide prevention through programs like QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) or safeTALK and ask about how cultural diversity plays a role in messaging to specific groups.
About Stan P. Collins
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Stan Collins has worked in the suicide prevention field for over 19 years. He has presented or provided training to over 750,000 adults and youth on the subject of suicide prevention including medical professionals, military, law enforcement, school staff and community members. In 2001, he testified before a United States Senate Subcommittee on the topic of youth suicide. Currently he is working as a consultant in the field, focusing on technical assistance in creation and implementation of suicide prevention curriculums and strategies.

Stan is part of the California Department of Education’s workgroup that developed the “Model Policy for Youth Suicide Prevention” in response to AB2246. Part of his work currently includes providing trainings to school districts across the state to assist in implementing AB2246 policies and procedures.

One of Stan’s roles is as the lead consultant and media representative to the San Diego Suicide Prevention Council (www.SPCSanDiego.org). Serving as the primary media relations contact for the S.D. Suicide Prevention Council on the subjects of suicide and suicide prevention, he has conducted over fifty interviews with news media (print, radio and television) to address suicide prevention and in response to suicide deaths. In this role, Stan has coordinated multiple media forums and trainings for both journalists and public information officers on how best to cover and respond to suicide and mental health issues.

Stan also serves as one of the lead consultants to the Fresno County Suicide Prevention Council (www.FresnoCares.org). In this role, he has created and provided a number of trainings on suicide risk assessment, safety planning intervention and suicide prevention gatekeeper trainings.

He is the co-founder of the Directing Change Program and Film Contest. In addition, he is co-author of the Know the Signs Training Resource Guide for Suicide Prevention in Primary Care toolkit, and author of the San Diego County Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training for First Responders. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/17

When people experience suicidal thoughts, a helpful best practice is to find collaborative ways to build “safety agreements” or “safety plans” (Stanley & Brown) or to engage with apps that help people cope with suicidal intensity like the “Virtual Hope Box.” These tools can be very useful in keeping the suicidal thoughts at a safe distance as time passes and their intensity lessens.

The Harvard School of Public Health’s Means Matter project published findings that when a suicide crisis hits a certain threshold, there is often little time between decision to act and the action of a suicide attempt. Sometimes this impulse from thought to action is only a matter of minutes. Because of this important piece of research, one critical life-saving step is to reduce access to lethal means.

But we need more ways to help people survive this experience.

Dr. Ursula Whiteside has been working developing a set of skills that people can use when they feel emotionally “on fire.” The analogy is a powerful one. Since elementary school we have been trained in fire drills and escape plans on what to do if we suspect there is a fire in the building. When it come to the fire of suicide intensity, these escape plans are our safety agreements or crisis response plans.

Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts to escape, we may find ourselves “on fire.” And in these instances of the most extreme forms of suicidal intensity, we need a different set of survival behaviors. We need to extinguish the “oxygen” that is feeding the crisis by quickly resetting the emotional state. In this episode, Dr. Whiteside shares three important steps that can help people reset their emotional system; the suicide crisis equivalent of “stop, drop and roll.”

About Dr. Ursula Whiteside
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Dr. Ursula Whiteside is a licensed clinical psychologist, CEO of NowMattersNow.org and Clinical Faculty at the University of Washington. She is also the co-founder of United Suicide Survivors International.

As a researcher, she has been awarded grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dr. Whiteside is co-principal investigator on a study involving 18,000 high-risk suicidal patients in three major health systems. This study includes a guided version of NowMattersNow.org, a program she developed that includes skills for managing suicidal thoughts based on Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and paired with Lived Experience stories.

Clinically, she began her training with Dr. Marsha Linehan in 1999 and later served as a DBT-adherent research therapist on a NIMH-funded clinical trial led by Dr. Linehan. Dr. Whiteside is a group and individual certified DBT clinician. Now, she treats high-risk suicidal clients in her small private practice in Seattle using DBT and caring contacts.

Dr. Whiteside is national faculty for the Zero Suicide initiative, a practical approach to suicide prevention in health care and behavioral healthcare systems. This program was recently described by NPR on a segment titled “What Happens If You Try to Prevent Every Single Suicide?” Dr. Whiteside serves on the faculty of the National Action Alliance Zero Suicide Academy. She is also a member of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Standards Trainings and Practices Committee.

As a person with Lived Experience, she strives to decrease the gap between “us and them” and to ensure that the voices of those who have been there are included in all relevant conversations: nothing about us without us.

Learn more about Dr. Whiteside by visiting her website.” For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/16

With high profile celebrity suicides dominating the headlines in June, the topic of suicide was on the mind of many. While we still have a ways to go to undo the misperceptions, prejudice and discrimination that surrounds suicide and suicidal intensity, we need move beyond just “raising awareness” in our efforts.

We need to take action.

My recent blog “From Awareness to Action: We All Need to Fight in the War against Suicide” calls for a revolution — a revolution of the heart. One of the key steps in preparing for this fight is to improve suicide alertness and intervention skills. Many evidence-based and evidence-informed trainings for the general population exist both on-line and in-person: QPR, safeTALK, ASIST and Working Minds.

In this podcast, I get the opportunity to interview one of the thought leaders in training development, Dr. Paul Quinnett. In addition to his bio below, Paul has had a huge impact on my journey in suicide prevention. He was one of my first mentors after my brother Carson died, and quickly inspired me to become one of his Master Trainers. Later he was also an essential expert advisor on our Man Therapy project. I always look forward to seeing Paul at our conferences, and sitting down with him to listen to his marvelous stories. I am so grateful he was willing to give his time to share his wisdom with us here.

Best Practices in Training
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In my free booklet: Awareness to Action: 23 Characteristics that Make Trainings Great, I share two prominent themes about best practices in training for resilience, mental health and suicide prevention:

1) Make it stick.
In order for a training to be effective, skills need to be “baked in” to a larger strategy of change. Tragically, in many situations, communities only become interested in suicide prevention training after the tragedy of suicide has struck. In these instances, we must first provide the psychological first aid of what we call “postvention” first — grief and trauma support — before transitioning into prevention efforts. After the postvention period, communities must be brought into the efforts of building a comprehensive and sustained approach to suicide prevention. One-off trainings are unlikely to have a lasting effects if they are not embedded in a top-down and bottom-up commitment to change.

2) Make it come to life.
The second theme of what makes trainings impactful is that they feel like they are “by, about and for” the people being trained. Effective trainings stay true to the fidelity that their researched outcomes are based-upon, and they also allow for cultural responsiveness. When the trainer is highly engaging and from the system that is being trained, chances of the participants buy-in increase. Finally, trainings that include a strong “lived experience” voice — someone who has lived through experiences of suicidal intensity — are more likely to be seen as “realistic.”

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About Dr. Paul Quinnett
Dr. Paul Quinnett is the Founder and CEO of the QPR Institute. QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — the 3 simple steps anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Paul explains, “Just as people trained in CPR help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help.” Today QPR is being used in seven countries, and together an army of global trainers have trained almost 3 million lay people (approximately 25,000 per month) in these life-saving skills.

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Paul is a clinical psychologist and trainer for more than 35 years and has authored seven books, many professional articles and book chapters. He was Director of Training for the Spokane Mental Health APA-approved psychology internship program for more than 20 years and has served on board of the American Association of Suicidology. Heavily involved in the training of mental health professionals, he currently serves as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He also founded the American Association of Suicidology’s

Paul is also an avid fisherman, and on the day of this recording I caught him up at his place in Idaho engaged in this lifelong hobby. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/15

Many of us consider “Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training” to be similar to CPR. Before we knew the ABCs of CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver, people would just watch on helplessly as someone choked in front of them. Today, we give millions of people every year a relatively brief training so that they will have the competence and confidence to step up and save someone’s life.

Just like CPR, suicide prevention gatekeeper trainings like Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) and safeTALK teach everyday people how to sustain the life of someone in crisis until professional care can take over. Just like CPR, these trainings provide a method to follow that even if not followed 100% is almost always better than doing nothing. Suicide prevention gatekeeper trainings help people identify someone in emotional or suicidal crisis, engage in compassionate questioning about suicidality, and refer to resources that offer dignified support and treatment.

Suicide prevention gatekeeper trainings are often given in schools, faith communities — even workplaces. Our interview with Sean McCarthy shares why he believes they are critical for those involved in athletics too. During the interview, Sean shares why he is so passionate about this topic and why suicide prevention should be part of a total wellness plan for athletes.

www.QPRIreland.ie for more information.

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About Sean McCarthy

Seán has worked in the field of mental health since 1980. He has worked in the following clinical areas; acute psychiatry, rehabilitation, forensic psychiatry and community psychiatric nursing. He has also worked in nursing administration, before moving into the field of suicidology. He holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Nursing Studies and a Diploma in Health and Social Welfare from the Open University as well as numerous other certificates and awards. For the past 20 years he has worked in the field of suicidology. He was the first appointed full time suicide resource officer in Ireland, co-ordinating initiatives focussing on the areas of prevention, intervention and postvention, in a specific geographic area as well leading out on a number of initiatives nationally. He is a member of the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP) and has been a co-chair of the IASP Special Interest Group (SIG) on Bereavement and Loss since 2007. Seán has presented on different aspects of his work at numerous international conferences such as Irish Association of Suicidology (IAS), International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), European Symposia on Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour(ESSB) as well as at the American Association of Suicide Prevention (AAS). He has been bereaved by suicide of a close family member and through the deaths of 2 friends to suicide. He is passionate about sport and the positives that people involved in it gain from such involvement. He believes that if we truly are determined to address the issue of male suicide particularly we need to go to the places where men are gathering at, such as workplaces and sports clubs. Where we can get men looking out for men in early identification of their friends, workmates and team mates who may be suffering.

In 2017 he was the recipient of the Farberow Award from the International Association of Suicide Prevention (IASP) in recognition of outstanding contributions in the field of bereavement and survivors of suicide loss. For mor information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/12

In order for mental health promotion and suicide prevention to be successful, leadership must be bold and engaged. The leaders who are most successful in creating change are those who address these seemingly taboo subjects head-on, in a matter-of-fact way. They find ways to “bake in” tactics into other places where healthy and safety are priorities.

Leaders who are most influential in creating a caring culture at the workplace are able to build a business case that looks at the ROI of investing in resilience and mental health support. They are also strategic in their effort, enrolling others in a pragmatic blueprint for change and tracking progress and pitfalls.

For the last four years, I have been heavily involved in bringing mental health promotion and suicide prevention to the construction industry. What started with a coffee meeting with the COO of a local mechanical contractor called RK, eventually morphed into a national movement. They key to this success was leadership — every step of the way, leaders leaned in and exerted their influence to make the circle bigger. Today, one of the biggest success stories in this effort is the creation of the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention overseen by the Construction Financial Management Association.

www.PreventConstructionSuicide.com

In this episode we cover some provocative questions like:

Why should financial leaders get involved in mental health promotion and suicide prevention?
What can workplaces and professional associations do?
How do we improve access to mental health care for employees?
What are the strategies of change?
About the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention
From their website: “Construction is the number one industry for number of suicides and the number two industry in suicide rates. As such, it is an industry imperative to shatter the mental health stigma and create caring cultures within our companies. CFMA has established the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention with the goal of providing and disseminating information and resources for suicide prevention and mental health promotion in construction. Through the information and resources CFMA has compiled, the Alliance looks to help those in the construction industry create awareness of the problem, cultivate a culture of caring, and start the conversation in the workplace.

Alliance members join our movement by assisting with the dissemination of resources and information to their membership through quarterly e-mail communications, newsletters, website promotion, webinars, and/or other means at their disposal. Membership in the Alliance provides organizations and associations with the opportunity to continue to help shape the construction industry through promoting the safety and well-being of companies’ most important assets – human capital.”

In under two years upwards of 70 members (most professional associations) joined The Alliance: http://www.preventconstructionsuicide.com/, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.

Visit the website to gain access to a library of tools and publications.

About Stuart Binstock
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Stuart Binstock is President and CEO of the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA). He has extensive experience in management issues, including strategic planning, government affairs, educational programming and delivery, financial management, membership development, non-dues revenue growth, program development, and process improvements.

Binstock has served in executive positions for such trade and professional associations as the National Electrical Contractors Association, Associated General Contractors of America, and American Institute of Architects. He is an experienced moderator of panels at national and regional conferences. He is also a frequent speaker and has been interviewed on television and NPR.

Since Binstock became President and CEO of CFMA, the association’s membership has grown from 6,400 to over 8,000 today. Its revenue has grown from $4.6 million to $6.1 million today. This growth has come about by CFMA focusing on bringing value to its members, finding non-dues revenue sources of income and returning nearly 10% of its revenue back to its 98 chapters through a variety of means which has resulted in strengthening CFMA’s chapters, thus strengthening the entire Association.

Stuart received his JD from the Catholic University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and has a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

About Michelle Walker
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Michelle Walker, CCIFP, SPHR is the Vice President of Finance and Administration at Specialized Services Company. Michelle has worked at SSC since 1998 and held multiple accounting positions within the organization prior to being promoted to VP in 2009. In her current role, she is responsible for the accounting/finance and human resource/employee benefit functions of the company with a primary focus in workforce planning and development. She works closely with the ownership as a member of the executive team on strategic planning, succession, compliance, safety and IT matters. Michelle earned her Certified Construction Industry Financial Professional designation in December 2014 and her Senior Professional in Human Resources certification in December 2015.

An active member of CFMA’s Valley of the Sun chapter since 2009, Michelle currently serves as its President. She has been a part of CFMA’s suicide prevention efforts since being a part of the first of its kind Suicide Prevention Summit in Phoenix, is chair of the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention task force, and serves on the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention’s Workplace Committee. She is a highly rated presenter with sessions at National CFMA, AGC, and TUG conferences. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/11

About 350 years ago, philosopher René Descartes took the brain out of the body – and we’ve been trying to put it back ever since. Descartes believed that the immaterial mind was separate from that matter of the body, and this dualism started many down a path of treating mind and body differently.

In this episode, we work to reunite the two to explore how their interconnectivity affects well-being. In this episode, we talk about how critical bodily functions like sleep, pain and our stress response are so closely tied to our emotional health. My guest Whitney McKnight, a clinical reporter whose work has focused primarily on the brain, encourages us to be our own scientists in our approach to understanding anxiety and depression and to always “improve our questions.”

Whitney is the founder of the discussion forum “docu-mental” – a play on the words “document” and “mental”. In these forums she brings together thought leaders to explore how mental health extends beyond clinical diagnoses to how we can find mattering and meaning in our respective emotional and mental crises. Over the course of her career covering the latest in clinical medicine, she has made connections between mental health conditions and communicable diseases – specifically, that it’s not just about personal vulnerability but also collective vulnerability. When we live in a society where policy aims and personal goals are misaligned, health dysregulation results. Her goal is to “strengthen the herd” by encouraging people to think critically and develop self-agency in matters of their mental health.

About Whitney McKnight
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Whitney McKnight is an award-winning, Washington, DC-based health sciences and mental health policy reporter, producer, and editor. Formerly the editor of Psychiatric Annals and of Pediatric Annals, she has also reported on clinical medicine and policy from meetings in the US and internationally for a variety of medical titles.

More: www.whitneymcknight.com For more information and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/10