Naperville pilots suicide prevention training for teens: ‘We’ve got to make an effort to get better’
When Scott Wehrli began working as a part-time police officer for the Naperville Park District, suicide calls were few and far between. Not unheard of, but sparse.
Over the past 10 years, though, the calls have mounted, Wehrli says.
The problem only became more apparent when he started campaigning for mayor.
“Everywhere I went,” he recalled, “I would hear a similar concern: ‘What are we doing about the mental health needs of our community?’”
Wehrli, almost eight months into his mayorship, has an answer.
This month Naperville piloted its inaugural “Teen Suicide Disruptor Training,” a city-run class designed to teach local youth how to intervene when someone they know is showing the warning signs of suicide. Two hours long, the course was months in the making.
Nearly eight, to be exact.
The day Wehrli took office, he established a working group to address gaps in mental health support for the community.
Composed of school personnel, emergency room physicians, mental health professionals, law enforcement and organizational leaders, the 23-member cohort has been meeting regularly since May.
“We all assembled,” Wehrli said, “and we just had a conversation. … (We) recognized that this is a thing we don’t necessarily have all the answers to, but we’ve got to make an effort to get better.”
Bringing the issue into the open
In 2022, the Naperville Fire Department received 3,305 emergency service calls for mental health and/or quality of life issues. That’s a jump of about 300 calls over 2020 stats.
In 2021, 48,183 people died by suicide in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s one death every 11 minutes.
For those 15 to 19 years old, suicide is among the leading causes of death.
“I’ve always found it ironic that when somebody across the street is diagnosed with cancer, everyone sends food over and takes out their garbage,” Wehrli said. “But the person down the street with bipolar disorder is ignored. Nobody wants to talk about that person.”
Wehrli wants Naperville to set an example for managing mental health differently.
“I would love for Naperville … to be recognized as a community that has open conversation about mental health,” he said. “It’s not something that we whisper about.”
Question, Persuade, Refer
The foundation of the city’s pilot suicide prevention training is QPR: question, persuade, refer.
Widely used worldwide, QPR is an evidence-based training that teaches participants how to identify and interrupt a mental health crisis.
QPR aligned with the goal that Wehrli’s working group pinned down in its initial discussions: teach high school students what to do if/when they come across someone who’s struggling, maybe signaling they could hurt themselves.
Members especially wanted to address warning signs that come through social media, which are not only pervasive but pose a unique challenge to stepping in.
Take Snapchat, for example. Say someone sends a friend a message in which they mention harming themselves. Snapchat messages can be sent to more than one person at once without other recipients knowing. For those on the receiving end, that means alarming messages also come with a degree of uncertainty.
Who else received the threat? Should I report this? Will someone else if I don’t?
Those are the kinds of questions that QPR and the city’s suicide prevention training tackle, primarily by emphasizing action — even when interfering can be daunting.
Mediation in three steps
“It’s hard, but it’s important,” said Leila Azarbad, a professor of psychology at Naperville’s North Central College. “By intervening, you potentially just saved someone’s life.”
Invited to be part of Wehrli’s mental health working group, Azarbad has years of experience working with people who are battling depression or suicidal thoughts.
Azarbad explained how QPR works in practice.
Q, or question, is in the name.
“Ask about suicide,” Azarbad said.
The Q step is about being direct, she said. Actually saying the word “suicide,” she said, is important for facilitating open dialogue.
“A lot of people worry that if they say suicide, it’s going to put the idea in that person’s head and increase that person’s risk. But we know from research that is not true. … It sends the message that you’re willing to have the difficult conversations.”
P, or persuade, is about encouraging people to seek help. R, or refer, goes hand in hand.
After broaching support as a viable option, Azarbad said, “It’s your job to loop in a trusted resource. That’s the biggest impact you can have.”
Just three simple steps, Azarbad said. That’s the message the city and its partners stressed as they piloted their suicide prevention training.
Not a replica
About 35 high school students from across Naperville participated in the Dec. 6 pilot training. Zoe Kirkman, a senior at Metea Valley, attended with her friends.
Kirkman heard about the training through a leadership club at her school. She went in expecting a refresher on lessons learned during health class. Instead, the city’s training added to curriculum.
“We’ve talked a lot about this, like mental health and depression and suicide, in school. … But we never really went through the specific ways you can do something about it,” she said.
As they built the program, working group members wanted Napervile’s course to supplement what’s already offered by area school districts. Kirkman welcomed the extra instruction, knowing it’s serving a very real need among her and her peers.
Kirkman said she had a friend who struggled with suicidal thoughts last year.
“It was so painful. And scary,” she said. “In a way, you’re like, did I not do enough for this friend? … You’re terrified that you’re not going to be able to talk to this person anymore. You just want them to be OK.”
‘Napervillized’ approach
By equipping participants with QPR, the city’s training aims to alleviate that stress of being a support system. And it doesn’t stop there. Naperville’s course focuses on the impact of using QPR as much as it does the skill set itself.
To allay anxieties, the program takes participants through a redacted 911 call of someone reporting a suicidal friend to local emergency responders and explains what happens when a person is sent to the emergency room on a mental health-related call. It also encourages self-care for mediators.
On the whole, Wehrli called the training a “Napervillized” approach to quelling mental health concerns.
Asked what’s next for the course, Wehrli said that’s “to be determined.”
“We’ve got to see where we are with regard to the feedback from the initial group,” he said, adding that a post-pilot review with working group members is set for January.
For now, Wehrli said possibilities include everything from staging the program at schools to making the course something the city offers regularly.
“I think we’ve established there’s a need. Now it’s about figuring out where we go from here,” he said. “I firmly believe that we’re going to hear from one of these kids one day that says, ‘Hey, I used those tools that we talked about in December 2023 and my friend is still alive because of it.’”
