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Nevada R-5 staff train to prevent suicide
As students and their parents across the Nevada R-5 District know, there was no school on Monday; it was a Professional Development day.
While K-5 teachers and K-12 para-professionals (paras) received training on dyslexia, every staff-member of the R-5 district, from bus-drivers, building maintenance, those in the kitchen and offices to paras, teachers and administrators all received “Trusted Adult” training as part of the district’s SOS, Signs of Suicide initiative.
Training materials for this program state “Suicide is a form of communication when healthy communication has broken down. Suicide is less of a wish to die but more of an escape from pain.”
In the United States, the words “suicide” and “school aged children” mix so often that — according to 2016 statistics from the U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — suicide is not only the second leading cause of death for young people ages 15-18 but also among children ages 10-14.
In response to this reality, in 2016, the Missouri General Assembly passed a law requiring each school district to adopt by July 1, 2018, a policy for youth suicide awareness and prevention and include training for district employees.
According to Mo. Rev. Stat. §170.048, each district’s policy includes strategies to identify students at possible risk of suicide; strategies and protocols for helping such students; and protocols for responding to a suicide death.
Friday afternoon in her office, R-5 assistant superintendent, Jodie K. McNeley was asked why the district is going beyond these minimums.
“Anytime that we are considering really any program, any initiative that has to do with student well-being or student safety, we are always going to be thorough,” said McNeley.
She said this initiative is in response to the new state law and as a way for the district to be proactive.
The district has chosen to use a program known as “SOS, Signs of Suicide” which was developed several decades ago by Screening for Mental Health, Inc., an organization located near Boston.
As program training materials state, “The basic goal of the program is to teach high school and middle school students to respond to the signs of suicide as an emergency, much as one would react to signs of a heart attack.”
This is the reason behind the program’s use of the acronym, SOS.
Working to provide training for the SOS program is Compass Health Network which includes Pathways Mental Health.
At the August meeting of Healthy Nevada’s Mental Health Committee, Sherrie Close a program coordinator with Compass Health Network noted, “While there are a number of suicide prevention programs out there, SOS is the only evidenced based program to reduce actual suicide attempts.”
This was shown to be a reduction of between 40%-64% in randomized controlled studies (Aseltine et al., 2007 & Schilling et al., 2016).
According to information provided, “SOS seeks to educate students that suicide is not a normal response to stress, but rather a preventable tragedy. It informs students of the risk associated with alcohol/drug use to cope with feelings.”
The program also provides students with specific action steps to take if they are concerned about themselves or others and encourages peer-to-peer communication using what it calls the ACT (acknowledge, care, tell) help-seeking message.
Students and staff are to acknowledge they are seeing the signs of depression or suicide in a friend, student or colleague and that it is serious.
Students and staff will be taught to let the person know you care about them and are concerned that he or she needs to help you cannot provide.
Then students are to tell a trusted adult of their concerns about a friend.
Asked why the R-5 district is going beyond counselors as “trusted adults” and instead is training every staff member McNeley said, “Our counselors do an amazing job but we know for a fact that our students create bonds with school bus drivers, those serving lunch, with our nurses and maintenance people and so we felt very strongly that we need to train them all.”
Said McNeley, “There are so many who don’t know how to respond to students or adults who are considering or making self-harm or any statements we might consider a self-harm. So we think it’s important that we train them as to how to respond in those instances.”
While all staff received basic program information and Trusted Adult training, the next steps are for middle and high school students.
According to McNeley, implementer training was held on April 18 for administrators and counselors.
A special committee worked to create the district’s own policy which was then reviewed and approved by the R-5 school board.
“It’s very specific to steps or protocol we would follow, all the way from what we would announce over the intercom to students, to how we would share the information with parents and the help we would give to students thinking or doing something; it’s a very detailed plan,” said McNeley.
She praised the drafting committee for its wisdom to think things through when not in the midst of a crisis and that way the district’s response would be caring, professional and thorough should any problem arise.
Beyond the training conducted to date, future pieces of the program include classroom education at the middle and high school levels as well as the use of questionnaires seeking to screen students as to whether they or people they know exhibit signs of suicide.
“Based on what we learn from those questionnaires and whenever they speak with a Trusted Adult, we will then follow-up with them and that way, we hope to be proactive and get people the help they need,” said McNeley.
“And I’m telling you, after those presentations, about 10 percent of students will come back and either report someone else or even themselves as being at risk for suicide. It’s a good program and I’m so glad the school’s taking this seriously and really running with it” said Close.
She will be making a presentation to the schools in the Golden Valley/Vernon County Conference on Sept. 24 in Ballard. This will include training for the Bronaugh R-7, Northeast Vernon County R-1 and Sheldon R-8 School Districts.
A final aspect of the new state law is that by July 1, 2021, and at least every three years thereafter, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is to seek feedback from districts on their experience with the policy for youth suicide awareness and prevention, post relevant information for districts and adapt the department’s model policy accordingly.