Joint Base San Antonio and the Army Substance Abuse Program in collaboration with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will present the free webinar “Suicide in Schools: Prevention and Intervention” from 10-11 a.m. Dec. 3.
While the primary audience for the webinar is professionals supporting the military, the webinar is open to the public on the Microsoft Teams platform.
Register for this event online. Once registered, participants will receive a calendar invitation with information on joining the webinar.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. and the second leading cause of death for Americans age 15-34 years, said Rachel Brauner, AgriLife Extension specialist for family and community health, Bryan-College Station, and principal investigator on the JBSA Fort Sam Houston prevention project.
“Understanding suicide requires empathy and helping prevent suicide requires knowing the warning signs and how to successfully approach and speak to the person in distress,” she said.
Brauner said Texas A&M University is the only land-grant institution that has Extension personnel on-site at any military installation in the U.S., which puts it in a unique position to help spread awareness of this important topic.
The webinar speaker will be Jonathan Singer, Ph.D., associate professor of social work at Loyola University, Chicago, president of the American Association of Suicidology and coauthor of the 2015 Routledge text, Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner’s Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention.
The webinar will address:
- Statistics on suicide ideation, attempts and death.
- Suicide myths and facts.
- Warning signs for suicide.
- The role of resilience in suicide prevention.
- The role of schools in suicide prevention, intervention and postvention.
- Suicide prevention tips for schools and parents.
Brauner said the webinar will help participants distinguish between suicide myths and facts, become more aware of the warning signs for youth suicide, and better understand prevention, intervention and post-intervention efforts to address youth suicide risk.
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