West Virginia Prevention Solutions gives nonprofits fresh look at suicide prevention
Nov. 17—FAIRMONT — Corporal Isaac Harmon of the West Virginia State Police recently learned a statistic that bothered him.
More members of law enforcement die by suicide each year than the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
So, he's doing something about it. After Raven Berkey, program administrator for the Marion County Quick Response Team sent him an invite for a suicide prevention talk that took place Thursday at the Marion County Health Department, he took her up on her offer.
"If I can, one, bring awareness to my peers that I work with and, two, be equipped to help the public in which I serve, I think that's a double edged sword," Harmon said. "I think it could be used effectively."
SafeTALK, which Stands for Suicide Awareness for Everyone, is a three-hour long training that provides its students with ways to approach individuals who may be thinking of suicide.
Key to safeTALK is the concept of invitations, or subtle hints that an individual may speak who is actively considering suicide. Vicki Cooper, adult intervention specialist for West Virginia Prevention Solutions, explained that individuals drop invitations to discuss the subject because the drive to live is a powerful one. However, recipients often either miss, dismiss or entirely avoid those invitations, with tragic consequences.
SafeTALK teaches its students to listen for these invitations and engage. Rather than miss, dismiss or avoid, anyone seeking to prevent an individual from completing suicide should repeat what situations or problems an individual is struggling with to show they are being heard. Once that's done, a helper can directly ask if the individual in question is thinking of suicide.
"There's a lot of myths about suicide," Wes Thomas, health educator at WELLWVU, said. "The topic of suicide is very uncomfortable for people to talk about or think about. One of the goals of this training is to get people to dispel myths and openly comfortable talking about suicide. Recognizing that thoughts of suicide are just part of being human and also being comfortable seeing signs of a person in their life who might be having thoughts of suicide and being able to provide that support and connect that person to further help."
Cooper and Thomas led the safeTALK class. Cooper said her organization worked with the health department to set up the event and invite members of the community to the training.
"Suicide is very preventable and learning about it and being open to talking about it is the biggest barrier to people getting help," Cooper said. "So learning about it, by taking a course like safeTALK or QPR, which is suicide prevention training, all this can get you ready to talk about it and learn what to do."
Jonathan Estep, a mobile crisis worker with Valley Healthcare Systems, said training such as safeTALK is valuable because one never knows when it's going to happen. It echoes what Thomas said as well, which is that safeTALK is for everyone because suicide is an issue that affects people at all stages of life. The last thing Estep wants is to be caught off guard, so even though he's already received training through his job, learning more is always valuable.
Estep said suicide is a lot more common in today's society. After a significant loss, like that of a career, dream or relationship, people sometimes need to be reassured that life is worth living, he said. Training like safeTALK's teaches how to shape that reassurance so that it will have the greatest impact and perhaps save a life.
"Everybody deserves a chance to be shown their life has an importance," he said. "Everybody deserves love, kindness, respect. The more things that you do to show those people that, the happier we can be in this world together as one."
More information on how to access this training can be found at WVPreventionsolutions.org/resources.
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
