Butler suicide coalition holds prevention training
Community members and people with lived experiences joined service providers at a suicide prevention training Thursday morning, March 7.
The event, hosted at Butler SUCCEED in partnership with the Butler County Suicide Coalition, guided participants through scenarios where they could support someone in crisis.
“We’re not here to train you to be a clinical counselor,” said Josh Novak, coalition member and co-presenter. “This is about how we respond to people that we care about, people that we interact with in our everyday life. And it’s about how we, at the very lowest levels, think about helping them talk about suicide openly if they’re thinking about it, and get support.”
Novak, who serves as dean of students at Butler County Community College, was joined by coalition co-chairman and mental health specialist Amy Cirelli.
“The main focus is intended to offer hope,” she said.
This is the second QPR Institute training offered by the coalition to members of the public, Cirelli said. QPR stands for question, persuade and refer — the three tenets of peer-to-peer suicide prevention training that emphasizes conversation, de-escalation and awareness of community resources.
Some registrants on Thursday were not service providers but community members — something Cirelli said she was excited about.
“It’s always important to make sure, you know, our service providers in mental health are trained in this because it’s part of their job every day, but we also want the community to be trained,” she said.
More than a third of participants Thursday were veterans and employees of Robin’s Home. Members of other agencies, including the Lighthouse Foundation, AmeriCorps and the Institute for Nonprofit Leadership were also present.
As the event unfolded, participants, who included receptionists, counselors and students, began to share how their lives have been touched by suicide.
One community member shared that her 16-year-old child died by suicide.
Josette Skobieranda-Dau, associate director of Butler SUCCEED at Slippery Rock University, said she has counseled several suicidal students, while Ricardo McPherson, a Navy veteran, expressed how five close friends he had provided support to later killed themselves.
“(Suicide) has confronted me five times,” McPherson said. “I’ve actually talked to two women and three men, and it was good. It worked, me talking. But it didn’t last. It was something that they could come and share with me because they knew me and I knew them. And we were very close — very close.”
“I learned to listen more than talk,” he said.
Last year, 35 people died by suicide in Butler County, according to the Butler County Suicide Coalition.
The numbers may be higher than reported, Cirelli said.
“I think there’s probably a lot of overdose deaths that were intentional, but there was no indication it was, it doesn’t get counted as a suicide,” Cirelli said.
Novak shared how his younger brother, a Marine Corps veteran, died five years ago of a fentanyl overdose after addiction treatment did not address his underlying mental health struggles that included suicidal thoughts, post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder.
Despite what Novak knows about his late brother’s death and his history of mental health struggles, it was not officially classified as a suicide by the coroner’s office.
Novak said the number of suicides has risen nationally since 2010, and the pandemic has only caused the rate to escalate, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
High risk groups include men, veterans, those over the age of 85, college students and LGBTQ+ youth between the ages of 10 and 24, Novak noted.
In all cases, understanding the stigma and pressures some groups face more than others like those that surround LGBTQ+ youth, the unique challenges experienced by veterans and the often unseen mental health struggles of senior citizens could help spread awareness of mental health struggles and could encourage people to reach out to their friends, family members and neighbors and offer support.
Suicide prevention begins with open dialogue and destigmatizing language, he said.
It could be a tough conversation, Novak said, but it gets easier and more empowering with practice.
If you are in crisis, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak with a trained listener or text 63288.
To reach the Veterans Crisis Line, dial 988 and press 1 or visit veterancrisisline.net for crisis chat services and more information.
The Trevor Project offers 24/7 crisis support for LGBTQ+ youth. Trained crisis counselors can be reached at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at www.TheTrevorProject.org/Help or by texting START to 678678.
