Students Help Prevent Teen Suicide In New Jersey Group

This Saturday at 3 p.m. cars will pull into the marina in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, and park, leaving at least one parking space between each car. On a stage at the end of the parking lot, youth bands will perform in a concert organized by high school students. Between the acts of this concert-at-a-distance, teens will step onstage to deliver a message about coping during COVID — and how to prevent teen suicide. They’ll urge young people to find the things that help them.

What helps the youth council of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide in Monmouth and Ocean counties, New Jersey, is music.

“They’ve been missing music,” said Susan Tellone, clinical director of the society based in Freehold, New Jersey. The 40-member youth council recently discussed the stresses they were under, she said.

“They talked a lot about how music was a very helpful thing for them. They wanted to spread the word about how important music was to their mental health,” Tellone said.

Everyone is feeling the impact of the pandemic, she said.

“Across the country we’re all experiencing a very subconscious level of anxiety,” she said. Tellone herself has known five people who have died of COVID-19.

And mental health professionals know that an uptick in suicide follows on the heels of natural disasters, she said. 

Young people have lost a lot, she said. They’ve lost their proms and graduations, the sports activities they’ve worked so hard to prepare for, the chance to gain sports scholarships to college and even the ability to visit a college.

They’ve lost “all those developmental tasks that were once-in-a-lifetime kinds of experiences,” Tellone said.

Some have had family members die of COVID-19. A sense of safety and the future feels uncertain, she said.

That’s on top of the fact that youth suicide rates have risen in the past decade, becoming the second, instead of the third, cause of death among young people.

Adults who work with youth play a critical role.

“One of the most important factors in suicide prevention is one trusted caring adult in the life of a young person,” Tellone said. ”A youth needs that trusted adult who listens without judgment and without jumping in to fix it for them.” Three little words make a big difference: “Tell me more.”

Keys to success

Her organization was founded in 2005 by two fathers in Monmouth County who each lost a child to suicide. The Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide is dedicated to reducing youth suicides by bringing proven preventive practices to public awareness. It provides a training program called Lifelines for educators and other adults.

The society is among the resource organizations listed by the federal Suicide Prevention Resource Center, which includes a database of proven programs. 

The Suicide Resource Prevention Center, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also includes a step-by-step method for communities and organizations to create a plan to address suicide and put it in place. Planning involves using data to understand the problem, setting goals, choosing interventions that meet the needs that have been identified and then evaluating the impact.

According to the resource center, keys to success are:

• Engage people with lived experience
• Partner with other groups to gain additional viewpoints and avoid duplication of efforts
• Create messaging that suicide is preventable and mental illness treatable
• Be culturally competent 
• Use evidence-based prevention programs.

Suicide happens when someone is in such pain that they think their problems are unsolvable, Tellone said. Prevention is about helping kids problem-solve and cope, she said.

To her, the pandemic may even have a silver lining. It’s causing both adults and young people to speak more openly about how they are feeling and how they are coping, she said.

Resources 

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Your Life Your Voice: Call 1-800-448-3000 or text with a counselor for free every day, 6 p.m. to midnight CT. Text VOICE to 20121 to start.

The Trevor Project supporting LGBTQ youth and others. Call 866-488-7386 or text the word “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200 on Fridays (4 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET). Standard text messaging rates apply.

National Runaway Safeline: Call 1-800-786-2929.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

RAINN: Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). This hotline provides victims of sexual assault with free, confidential services around the clock.