Program encourages teens to tell adults about suicidal friends

NEW YORK - Seeking reinforcements in the fight against teen suicide, mental health experts are launching a program in high schools nationwide aimed at encouraging teens to tell an adult if one of their friends confides thoughts of suicide.

The program, which starts in early October at roughly 200 high schools, has a seemingly simple goal: to enable teens to respond to suicide warning signs as competently as someone trained in the Heimlich maneuver would respond to someone choking.

''Talking about suicide is both a symptom and also a communication that needs to be taken seriously,'' said Dr. Douglas Jacobs, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor who is overseeing the program.

''Young people would respond if they saw someone choking or clutching their chest,'' Jacobs said. ''With someone talking about or showing signs of suicide, they should do the same, and we want to provide them the tools.''

Though the rate of teen suicides has dipped slightly in recent years, it remains the third-leading cause of death for teen-agers. According to federal estimates, one of every five high school students has thought seriously about attempting suicide, and one in 14 has made an actual attempt.

Jacobs is executive director of Screening for Mental Health, an organization based in Wellesley Hills, Mass., that 10 years ago initiated a still-growing national program to screen for depression.

The new suicide-prevention program is being launched in conjunction with National Depression Screening Day on Oct. 5. Participating schools get a kit that includes posters, instruction material for adult staff, and a 20-minute video for teens that offers ''do's and don'ts'' in the event a friend shows suicidal signs.

Don't simply say, ''Snap out of it,'' or dismiss the behavior as an attitude problem, the video advises. Don't assume threats are just a way of letting off steam, and don't promise secrecy.

Jan Tkaczyk, president of the Massachusetts School Counselors Association and guidance director at Cape Cod Regional Technical School, says on the video that students should tell an adult even if they fear alienating a friend.

''One of the things that's going through your mind when you come into my office is you're afraid you're being a traitor,'' she said. ''Let me assure you that very seldom do friends even get mad. Your friend will be relieved that you care enough to go to someone to get some help for them.''

Dr. Jane Pearson, who chairs the suicide research consortium of the National Institute of Mental Health, said the new program is a worthwhile effort to detect more troubled youths before they harm themselves.

However, Pearson said the program might flounder in schools that lack adults trained to respond to information provided by students.

''You have to have the treatment ready to go, and a confidential way of getting kids the help they need,'' she said from the institute's headquarters in Bethesda, Md. ''If you're not prepared to handle responses and take care of someone who's ill, that's a problem.''

Jacobs agreed that mental-health resources are thinly stretched in some school districts. But in most areas, he said, the problem is coordination among different health and educational sectors rather than lack of resources.

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On the Net:

http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org