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Grants to boost
youth suicide prevention efforts in New England
(December
2005 Issue)
By Pamela Berard
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
issued 37 grants - several for New England - to support national
youth suicide prevention efforts.
Among the grants, the Education Development Center Inc. (EDC) of
Newton, Mass., will receive an annual award of approximately $2.6
million per year for five years. In addition, programs in Massachusetts,
Maine and New Hampshire were among 14 state-sponsored youth suicide
prevention grantees and will benefit from approximately $350,000
to $400,000 per year for the next three years and Keene State College
in N.H. is one of 22 campuses to receive funds, approximately $32,000.
Anara Guard, associate center director of the Suicide Prevention
Resource Center of EDC, says the grant will help continue operations
of the three-year old resource center, which supports suicide prevention
efforts in every state. In addition, EDC will be working in an advisory
role with the new grantees and support them in their work.
"It's a combined focus of being a resource center for the whole
country and also offering some customized assistance for the new
grantees," Guard says.
The grants were made possible through the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial
Act for youth suicide prevention programs, which was passed by Congress
in late 2004.
The focus will be on youth up to age 24, including teens and college
students, who have long had higher suicide rates than other populations.
"That's partly because adolescents are impulsive. They sometimes
are under stress and don't have as good coping skills as adults
might have and mental health services are also lacking for youths
in many states," Guard says.
All of the new grantees will meet for several days in Washington,
D.C., in December. "That will really mark the start of the programs
jumping into high gear," Guard says.
EDC will help the individual grantees in several ways, for example,
"we'll help them to find models of what has already been done so
they don't have to start from scratch with everything. If they want
to find a campaign that has been effective we find those models
for them," Guard says.
Sally Fogarty, associate commissioner for the Massachusetts Department
of Public Health, says the state's award will benefit a joint collaboration
between three state agencies that will focus on several areas, including
training foster care system parents and staff as "gatekeepers."
"What that will do is really teach them additional skills and expertise
in working with youth who may be pre-suicidal or suicidal, and how
to refer them," Fogarty says. The agencies will also work with the
Department of Youth Services, which will bring in or hire two family
intervention specialists to connect with families and also train
DYS staff in the gatekeeper model.
The initiatives will target youth 18 and under because they are
the population in the foster care and DYS systems. A focus is on
early identification so the youth will be "able to really develop
feelings of hopefulness, be able to become really functional productive
teens and young adults," Fogarty says. "And at the same time, we're
working with staff and family and also with some communities to
really train people to identify and work with youth who are at risk
for suicide."
In Maine, the funds will allow the state to expand its nationally
recognized youth suicide prevention program to reach three high-risk
and particularly vulnerable rural counties and two culturally sensitive
populations - the Native American community and the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender
community.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness-New Hampshire was selected
as the only private, nonprofit agency to receive the award among
the 14 state grantees. The focus of the grant will be to assist
New Hampshire with implementing aspects of the state suicide prevention
plan that are specific to youth. Key goals include: strengthening
the Youth Suicide Prevention Assembly; working with community coalitions;
providing advanced training to the state's volunteer Disaster Behavioral
Response Team; and developing messages to reduce stigma and increase
help seeking behavior.
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