Expert guides community on preventive action for suicide

    Experts visited the Cascade High School auditorium on March 5 to offer a free forum for suicide prevention - a difficult topic to tackle, but one of importance. The preventive presentation was given by an individual seasoned in the field - Dr. Julie Rickard, founder of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of North Central Washington and assisted by psychologist Maxwell Moholy, Behavioral Health Consultant at local hospital, Cascade Medical.
    Cascade School District parents, staff and superintendent all filed into the auditorium. They were greeted by cookies, lemonade and a wide array of suicide prevention guides and informative packets.
     "We're all here because we have a caring heart. We're interested in helping our students and community heal from past events. And move forward, knowing how to prevent these events from happening in the future," said Cascade High School principal, Elia Ala'ilima-Daley, as he opened the presentation.
    Rickard navigated through the delicate topic, not with child proof gloves nor in a emotionless, sterile, harsh manner - but firmly explaining facts with a personable attitude.
    Rickard launched into the forum with statistics that illustrated some staggering matter of fact numbers and percentages. Some numbers focused on which demographics were considered high risk groups (seniors, LBGTQQ, teens, veterans) and which states have the highest suicide rate (rural states where its difficult to access care).
    However some of the statistics zeroed in on youth specifically - for instance, Rickard explained age groups 10-14, 15-24 and 25-35 that suicide is the second leading cause of death and shared the fact that about 20% of teens will consider suicide.
    "I think it's surprising when we think about all the ways people can die and for youth, (suicide is) the second leading cause."  Rickard. "It's not uncommon when we look at suicide statistics we have a cut off around age 24 and that is based on the maturation of the brain. Part of the work we have to do is teach them (youth) resiliency skills, teach frustration tolerance."
    She stressed that suicide is multi-determined - there is not one particular factor that propels an individual to suicide. It's a complex array of factors that all funnel into the decision.  
    "Suicide is always multi-determined. It's not uncommon people believe that it's one thing that made this happen. The truth is, it's always multi-factorial," explained Rickard. "It's not because you chose not to call or chose not to post a thank you or whatever the person feels as guilt."
    Rickard touched on some factors that weigh in on why an individual would attempt or commit suicide, particularly pertaining to youth: substance abuse (including marijuana), most youth have the mindset their issues won't  get better (this emotional moment they're currently immersed in will never pass) and having access to lethal means (mom's prescription drugs or dad's gun safe).
    "83% of youth who had lethal doses of medicine got them from their grandparents, got them from people in their life," said Rickard. "86% of youth are able to get in the gun safe without any issue."
    She tackled covering myths surrounding suicide or misinformed conceptions. One myth was that suicide isn't preventable - she reiterated that research shows if people get good help when they need it, they usually never attempt again.  There was emphasis on looking beyond what the stereotypical, assumed "mold" of a suicidal person - that people often are shocked when good looking or popular people take their own life.
    "A lot of people have some thoughts about suicide: whether you can talk about it, whether you can't talk about it. And that really plays a large role in how people move forward and talk about suicide to other people because they have this kind of misguidedness."
    Another important segment of the forum was when Rickard defined various degrees of clues that are red flags. Rickard gave examples of behavioral, situational, direct and and indirect clues.
    "Part of what we look for is a baseline change in how they've always been," said Rickard.
    Lastly, she offered avenues for how to offer help or pose a question over someone's suicidal tendencies. She expressed that its key to let them talk freely, avoid trying to fix it and how imperative is to be a listening ear - and the primary first step is to seek out treatment for the individual.
    At the end of Rickard's spiel, a Cascade High School student, Alana presented her peer support group. She has begun kickstarting to provide a safe space for her peers in need. There was also a question and answer opportunity for the audience to engage. Despite being a somber and triggering conversation, the audience appeared to have left receptive from the forum.