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Date: 10/22/2015
WILBRAHAM – The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District (HWRSD) will host two speakers who will help inform students, parents, and community members about ways to prevent teen suicide.
Gina Kahn, director of the district’s Safe Schools/Healthy Students program at the HWRSD Center for Health and Safety, said on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. Dr. Barry Feldman, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, will speak to students and parents about the Lifelines Suicide Prevention Program.
“A little over two years ago, we had the opportunity to become involved in a training initiative that was co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School,” she explained. “The purpose of that opportunity was to help the schools bring an evidence based suicide prevention program into their districts and the program that was selected was Lifelines.”
Kahn said the district’s data – collected through a youth-risk behavior survey during several years – has substantiated that teens have concerns about depression and thoughts of suicide.
“Lifelines really seemed to meet all of our criteria,” she added. “We engaged in the training and last year was the first year that this curriculum was implemented with students at the ninth grade level.”
The curriculum was designed to be delivered to high school freshmen because the district thought the grade level was a good entry point to address the issues, Kahn said.
“It’s not a matter of finding out how to put Lifelines specifically into those other grade levels, but rather what are the core concepts of Lifelines that are already continually reinforced in things like the advisory program that is school-wide,” she added.
“Those core concepts are resilience; helping students deal with the inevitable ups and downs, problem solving, which is, ‘How do you create strategies to figure out your response when you hit those bumps in the road, and finally most importantly – help seeking,” she continued.
Another aspect of Lifelines involves helping teachers and classmates to better recognize signs and systems of depression, she noted.
The Lifelines curriculum will be presented in November for ninth grade students enrolled in semester one physical education and health classes and will be repeated in January for those taking the class in semester two, Kahn said.
The district is also offering a youth mental health first aid course for parents and interested adults, she added. The eight-hour training program promotes community-wide awareness of teen mental health concerns and teaches participants to recognize and respond to teens who may be in crisis.
On Nov. 12, the district is also hosting guest speaker Amy Mendrala from Lisa’s Light of Hope, a charitable fund named in honor of West Springfield native Lisa Marie Calabrese, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 21 due to the health effects of her eating disorder.
“Her presentation really reflects on a very personal story of the experience of a family member with an eating disorder,” Kahn said. “The reason why this is valuable is because it also continues to reinforce those three key concepts – resilience, problem solving, and help seeking.”