One Step Forward for Suicide Prevention & Awareness Week (Sept. 8-14, 2024)

Hello School Counselors and Friends! 

I’m Dr. Loren Dittmar, Lead Professional Learning Specialist with Hatching Results. Suicide Prevention and Awareness Week - September 8th-14th - is quickly approaching, and I’d like to share some resources and ideas for school counselors wishing to support your students and communities during this week. My goal is to provide a few ideas to encourage you to consider new and creative ways to make a difference in your own community. Having over two decades of experience in schools and clinical mental health settings in several states across the country, I can attest that as school counselors, we don’t often hear lots of thank-yous, but the most meaningful expressions of gratitude I have received from students are from those who said, “You saved my life!”

First, one might wonder, why is September the month when Suicide Prevention and Awareness is highlighted? After all, aren’t depressive symptoms at their peak during the holiday season in November/December? Well, you might be surprised to learn that the highest rate of suicide is actually during the summer months of June through August (source: UPenn.edu, 2023). When you look at the data, the fact remains that there are an average of 135 deaths by suicide per day, and it is the second leading cause of death among our students, so the earlier we can talk about it once school starts, the better.

If you’ve worked in education for any extended period of time, you know that it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” this sad crisis will occur, and the question to ask yourself is, have I done everything I possibly can to help prevent suicide? That has been a hard question to answer myself, especially after I have worked in schools/districts where seven students I knew died by suicide. If I may share vulnerably, my own brother’s death to suicide over 15 years ago was the most traumatic loss I have ever experienced, and it changed how I view every single student who walked through my door. I knew all the stats, but it wasn’t nearly as real until I experienced such loss.

So, knowing that about 20% of students struggle with severe mental health issues and only a fraction of them are receiving professional support, and that 1 in 6 students have seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months, I now walk into a classroom of 30 students and look around wondering, “who are the five?” And the reality is, there’s no obvious answer. It could be any one of them because depression and suicidal ideation can be ruminating in the minds of your star athletes, valedictorians, artists, musicians, overachievers, underachievers, rebels, hipsters, whomever. Especially with this generation, and the evidence showing a rise in anxiety and depression due to social media addictions (source: NIH, 2023), we need to be much more diligent and empathic.

So, what is your school/community doing for suicide prevention and awareness?  

I have worked in several different schools across the country - from New York, to Georgia, to California, and more recently in South Carolina - and each place has been different. Because of my passion for school mental health, I have presented on the topic of Suicide Prevention and Awareness at numerous state and local conferences throughout the nation, and heard from various school counselors, and the answers range from nothing (out of fear) to basic notifications (such as providing the 988 hotline) to faculty trainings and student awareness videos (e.g. AFSP’s “More Than Sad”), to very intentional schoolwide efforts that include screenings of all students (such as S.O.S.).

In my previous schools, I served as the faculty advisor for our “Wellness Club,” where the students launched a number of activities throughout the year about student mental health, including organizing workshops at our school with local therapists serving as guest speakers on various mental health topics. We also participated in the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s (AFSP) “Out of the Darkness Walks” and collaborated with the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses (NAMI) to bring in speakers to share their “In Our Own Voice” presentations. I have provided brief pre-recorded presentations about healthy coping strategies for our teachers to share during our homeroom meetings. My former team in Georgia organized a “Mix-It-Up for Mental Health Day,” which added the mental health element to this well-known national event by bringing in various local organizations to our campus to share resources and activities to raise awareness about mental health, while also encouraging students to connect with others who they do not typically talk to at lunch.

These are just a few ideas to encourage you to consider new and creative ways to make a difference in your own community. Wherever you are in this journey of supporting your students and community, I challenge you to take it one step further to make it even better this year, because you truly can save a life!