Kosciusko Cares safeTALK Event A Success
KOSCIUSKO COUNTY — Saturday, February 27, 23 local citizens were trained by the Indiana chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as safeTALK ALERT helpers.
SafeTALK is a science-based strategy that is one piece of of a plan to build a suicide-safe community. The goal of the training is for participants to become alert to suicide. Suicide-alert people are better prepared to connect a person with thoughts of suicide with life-affirming help.
Participants learned to notice and respond to situations where suicide thoughts may be present, recognize that invitations for help are often overlooked, move beyond the common tendency to miss, dismiss and avoid suicide and apply the TALK steps — tell, ask, listen, keep safe — and how to connect someone with thoughts of suicide to further suicide-safe help.
Moving forward, Kosciusko Cares will work with community partners to initiate a countywide suicide prevention protocol.
Many of the participants at Saturday’s training volunteered to attend the next level of training and become ASIST intervention caregivers. Here are a few suicide-prevention facts from safeTALK:
- Most people thinking of suicide want help to stay alive.
- People thinking of suicide find ways to invite help from others.
- Invitations are often missed, dismissed or avoided.
- The best way to find out if someone is thinking of suicide is to ask directly.
- Asking directly about suicide will not give someone the idea.
- Avoiding direct and open talk about suicide is not helpful and could be dangerous.
- Anyone can have thoughts of suicide.
- Everyone can learn how to help.
For more information or to become involved, contact Marsha Carey, [email protected]. For more information about safeTALK and suicide prevention efforts nationally visit www.afsp.org.