CONTENTS

About This Course

Table of Contents

1. The Nature and Scope of Suicide
2. Recognizing the Progressive Development of Suicide
3. Substance Abuse as a Major Contributor to Suicide
4. Suicide Across the Life Span
5. Special Populations and Suicide Risk
6. Prevention and Early Intervention for Suicide and Substance Abuse Problems

Supplements
References
Resources

Holding the Lifeline
A Guide to Suicide Prevention

Raising Public Awareness

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (SAVE) is dedicated to preventing suicide through public awareness and education and to eliminating the stigma of suicide. It also serves as a resource to those who are touched by suicide. SAVE has a community action kit with tools such as public awareness materials, pre-printed and pre-recorded ads that can be tailored to a community, community education programs (how to build a speakers' bureau and start a school-based program, etc.), organizing tips, materials for the press and the public, reproducible products, suggested activities, as well as contact and resource information.

Every year, SPAN USA sponsors a National Awareness Event in Washington, DC to raise awareness about the toll of suicide and the need for suicide prevention initiatives. Suicide prevention advocates come to the nation's Capital to remember those lost to suicide and conduct advocacy with members of Congress. The event features a display of Lifekeeper State Memory Quilts to put a face on the thousands of lives lost to suicide.

Among the prevention activities organized by Yellow Ribbon International Suicide Prevention Program is an annual yellow ribbon suicide awareness and prevention week beginning on the third Sunday of each September. Yellow Ribbon participants at the local level:

• Contact elected officers about declaring a suicide prevention week in their communities
• Post yellow ribbons and prevention posters and flyers
• Hold candle lighting or memory memorials and walks for life
• Contact local newspapers and other media about the epidemic level of youth suicide in the United States

Changing public attitudes about suicide includes increasing the awareness of suicide's human and financial costs on society. The majority, about two-thirds, of suicides occur among the nation's workforce (age 25-65). One researcher estimated the impact of suicide on a corporate "family" that included 100,000 employees with an average of four blood relatives per employee. The cost of suicide included:

• The loss of a corporate family member to suicide every seven days
• Three suicide attempts every day ref