Tag: resilience

In many societies we are predominantly youth-focused and overlook the healthcare and policy needs of our elders. This ageist perspective often leads to cultural scripts that prevent us from listening better to alleviate suffering and increase reasons for living, and ultimately help us all live well into our golden years.

In the podcast our panel includes two experts a leading researcher of geriatric psychiatry and a co-founder of United Survivors Suicide International who has tremendous experience in many national board positions leveraging the perspectives of people with lived expertise. Together they bring sound research and stories about the resilience of our elders — their life satisfaction and happiness and tactics to ward off the 5 D’s of suicide risk: Depression, Disease, Disability, Disconnection and Deadly means.

Together they passionately advocate for age-friendly health systems and communities, especially more providers with specialties in working with elders. Together let’s shift the attitude and appreciate more for the value our elders, “When we lose an older person, we lose a library.”

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About Heidi Bryan
Heidi is a suicide attempt survivor who also lost her brother to suicide. She has been working in the suicide prevention field since 1998 as an advocate, QPR Master Trainer, speaker, and author. Heidi founded Feeling Blue Suicide Prevention Council in 1998 which is now known as Prevent Suicide Pennsylvania. She served on the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention Suicide Attempt Survivor Task Force, and is currently on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Consumer Survivor Committee.

About Dr. Yeates Conwell
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Yeates Conwell, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of
Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry,where he is Director of the UR
Medical Center¹s Office for Aging Research and Health Services and
Co-Director of the UR Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide. He
is immediate past president of the American Foundation for Suicide
Prevention and chair of its Scientific Council. Dr. Conwell received his
medical training at the University of Cincinnati and completed his
Psychiatry Residency and a Fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry at Yale
University School of Medicine. In addition to teaching and service system
development, Dr. Conwell maintains a clinical practice with older adults
and directs an inter-disciplinary program of research in aging, mental
health services, and suicide prevention.. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/21

When it comes to engaging a wider circle in our suicide prevention and mental health promotion movements, we need to take a page from the playbook of other social justice movements. How do we “make the message stick”? How can we bring the call to action to life? How do we create a tipping point of change?

Successful agents of change are able to connect the dots and “bake in” tactics within a broader system, making suicide prevention and mental health promotion everyone’s priority. They also enroll people into the cause by listening first and then employing culturally responsive efforts that lift up the stories of local people who have lived through the challenges.

Within the world of mental health and suicide, we must seriously reconsider our “business as usual” approach because it’s not working. Social justice issues related to human rights are at the center of the reasons for our short-comings. During this interview I got to spend time chatting with one of the most accomplished social change agents I know: John Mendoza.

About John Mendoza
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In this podcast we hear from an international inspiration, John Mendoza, on how he has mobilized change throughout Australia and beyond. I first met John through our mutual admiration of MATES in Construction many years ago. In 2014 John came to Colorado upon my invitation to speak at our US/Canada/Australia forum on Workplace Mental Health. Most recently, he invited me to keynote at an event on the Sunshine Coast called “Shifting the Dial” where he convened 165 business, political, advocate and lived experience leaders to talk about innovative approaches to tackling the injustice of suicide.

Today, John is the Director of ConNetica, an Australia organization established in 2007 with a mission of connecting people from diverse networks to solve complex problems. ConNetica is known for its suite of training “Lifeboat” programs including “Conversations for Life.” John is the former Chair of the Australian Government’s National Advisory Council on Mental Health and former CEO of the Mental Health Council of Australia. He has been a key advocate for securing billions for Australian mental health plans. For John the calling to do this work goes well beyond the professional as he lost a cherished nephew in 2014 under circumstances that were partly attributable to substandard mental health care.

During our interview John shares some of his highly effective tactics in engaging A-List media partners and in bringing divisive political foes together to move toward a common mission of saving lives. He argues that we need more than a multi-pronged approach to suicide prevention; we need to build a fortress of a strategy and look at the social determinants to despair.

From working with the International Olympic Committee while planning the Sydney games to working with the indigenous people of the Kimberly, John has learned much about empowerment, building capacity and disrupting the status quo.

Also, he like to partner with unreasonable people, so I’m glad to call him my friend and fellow warrior.

for more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/20

Early in his career Dr. John Draper had a lightbulb moment when he was on suicide watch for patients while they were being “treated” with isolation and restraints; he thought “we can do better.” Today, John is one of the global leaders transforming crisis care for people on their worst day. He has helped spark an evolution through his leadership of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by using data, standards of excellence and the input of people with lived experience to continually improve care.

One area of focus for John is virtual support. We have a significant gap between mental health treatment and support resources and the need for these services, and technology can help us meet those needs. Virtual support can offer a spectrum of benefits and is desirable due to its efficiency, cost-effectiveness and anonymity. In this podcast John talks about the many new evidence-based technology resources that help us reach people in the way they want when they want it.

For the Lifeline, the future holds great promise for new directions in tele-crisis response as recent legislation for the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act recently passed. This legislation supports a national feasibility study on the benefits of moving to a three-digit mental health crisis support number (like 911, but for emotional crises) to “supercharge” access.

John closes with a very clear call to action on how best to support people in a suicide crisis — the “3 Cs”: Connection, Collaboration and Choice. Tune in to hear more!

About Dr. John Draper
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Dr. Draper has over 25 years of experience in crisis intervention and suicide prevention work, and is considered one of the nation’s leading experts in crisis contact center practices (hotline, online chat, text services, etc.). Since 2004, Dr. Draper has been the Director of the SAMHSA-funded National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-TALK), overseeing all aspects of this service. As Exectuive Vice President of National Networks at Vibrant Emotional Health in New York City, Dr. Draper and his team also administer the National Disaster Distress Helpline, the National Football League (NFL) Life Line, and partner with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in their operations of the national Veterans Crisis Line. In addition, Dr. Draper and his team were contracted to develop and launch the Crisis Text Line in 2012. Dr. Draper worked as a psychologist on a Brooklyn-based mobile crisis team in an earlier phase of his career, developed and launched New York City’s first 24/7 crisis hotline in 1996, and has maintained a private psychotherapy practice in New York City since 2000. For more information on this and every episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/19

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