Counseling students away from thoughts of suicide

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If you look back on your own youth as a carefree time, you may be surprised to learn that the third leading cause of death among 15-to-24 year-olds is suicide.I still feel a pang of guilt when I recall an unpopular classmate, shunned and teased by other fifth-graders, who hanged himself in his garage. Had I made an effort to befriend him at the age of 10, would he still be alive?The college years can be the most difficult of all for young men and women to survive emotionally with any perspective. Back in the late 1960s, when a series of students leapt to their deaths from the roof of their high-rise dormitory, the campus president persuaded my old psychology professor to take up permanent residence there so he would be available day and night to talk to troubled students. Sure enough, the incidents ended.Stacy Teicher Khadaroo of The Christian Science Monitor recently reported on a successful suicide prevention program available to high school students through Screening for Mental Health, a Massachusetts nonprofit.It's called Signs of Suicide. Since 2000-01 over 3,500 schools nationwide have used its materials to teach students how to recognize and respond to depression and thoughts of self-violence. The program has reduced suicide attempts by 40 percent in schools that use it.Signs of Suicide encourages teachers, parents, and fellow students not only to identify young people who are seriously depressed, but also those who are bullied, shunned, or uncommunicative. Students otherwise inclined not to betray trust learn to speak up. A high school sophomore admits "how dangerous it is not to speak out... When it comes down to either losing a friend because they're not talking to you anymore or losing a friends because they lost their life, you know, I think this makes people come out and say, 'This person needs help.'"Students are first asked to screen themselves, answering a few questions about their mental and emotional outlook, and the stresses they feel. Only one in a hundred students takes the initiative to talk to a counselor, but as many as a dozen students turn in surveys that prompt a counselor to "check to make sure they're okay."Among the most effective counselors are self-confident fellow students, who listen to troubles and can be trusted to keep confidences. A former peer counselor shares a video explaining his early attempts to harm himself. Depression, he explains, Is "kind of like a black hole...It gradually gets bigger and bigger and sucks you in until everything is just a negative thought."In the most recent year of record (2005), 16.9 percent of U.S. high school students admitted they had thought seriously about killing themselves, and 8.4 percent made an attempt during the previous 12 months. Suicide accounts for 12.9 percent of the deaths of 15-to-24-year-olds in America, compared with just 1.4 percent of deaths in our overall population. Without someone to open up to, kids can be their own worst enemies.(David Yount's new book is "How the Quakers Invented America" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com.)??