Youth Suicide

1. Youth Suicide What is my responsibility?

2. Introduction • There are many stresses and events in a youth’s life that cause extreme emotion, both highs and lows. However, sometimes the emotions are so negatively extreme they can cause a person to feel that their only way out is to harm themselves, or worst case, commit suicide. Through this activity, our goal will be to look at some of the primary reasons a person reaches this life ending decision and what your responsibility is in such a drastic situation. • Read this article to gain some background on youth suicide.

3. Task and Objectives • Research about Youth Suicide through provided links. • Find answers to some pertinent questions regarding youth suicide. • Develop a presentation to describe risk factors of youth suicide, present relevant statistics, and discuss your responsibility in the matter of youth suicide. • Complete a survey regarding youth safety.

4. Process • Answer the following questions using the provided links in order to gain more insight into youth suicide: • http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/behavior/suicide.html# • http://www.teensuicide.us/articles1.html • http://www.teensuicidestatistics.com/statistics-facts.html • Do boys or girls attempt suicide more often? How much more often? • Do boys or girls succeed in their attempt more often? By how much? • For every completed suicide, about how many attempts are there? • Find the ranking of leading causes of death for youth. What are the only causes of death ranked higher than suicide in youth?

5. Process • Study the graphs showing statistics found from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Focus on the age adjusted graph. This is another place for you to just take in some of the information. • http://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures 5. Create a double bar graph of the data found in the table about men and women from the National Institute of Mental Health. • http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml

6. Process • Look over the 2010 data found from the American Association of Suicidology. Find our state and compare the numbers to the United States as a whole country. Answer the following: • 2009 Data • 2010 Data 6. Where does our state rank each year (2009 and 2010)? 7. How many places above or below the U.S. average (in bold) is our state in each year? 8. Create a scatter plot using only the 2010 data in the table titled “U.S.A. Suicide Rates 2000-2010” found at the bottom of the first page. Use only the age intervals on the horizontal axis, not the other subgroups. 9. What is the trend being set by our nation?

7. Process • Check out the trends in suicide from the Center for Disease Control. You will need to click on multiple links from the link below to see the different graphs. • http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/statistics/aag.html#B 10. Write a short paragraph describing your findings. What conclusions or predictions can you make based on the graphs about gender? Age? Geographic location?

8. Smoothed, Age-adjusted Suicide Rates* per 100,000 population, by County, United States, 2000–2006 • From 2000–2006, the western US counties, including Alaska, had predominantly high suicide rates. Suicide rates were also high in certain Appalachian counties of southeastern Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, southern Oklahoma and northern Florida. We live here!!!

9. Presentation • At the beginning of this project, you were asked to research about Youth Suicide through provided links and find answers to some pertinent questions in order to develop a presentation to • describe risk factors of youth suicide, • present relevant statistics, • and discuss your responsibility in the matter of youth suicide. • Now that you have learned much about youth suicide, the direction it is taking, and how you can help to prevent it, it’s time to take action. Within the presentation you develop, address one of the questions listed on the next page. Be sure to use graphs and statistics to support your presentation. There are additional resources to view in order to help with your arguments, but of course, you may do your own research as well! Keep in mind, the focus is: What Is MY Responsibility?

10. Presentation Questions • Should schools provide mandatory preventive counseling to all students? All girls? All boys? • How can someone help? • Peer Involvement in Campus-Based Suicide Prevention • Preventive counseling effectiveness • http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21831072 • http://www.edward.org/teen-sos • http://www.lindenschools.org/Suicide%20Prevention%20-%20Facts,%20Signs%20and%20Interventions.pdf • Should the information connecting firearms and suicide cause greater gun control? • http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm • http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/means-matter/risk/ • Suicide and Self Injury By Firearm • Discuss how LGBTQ issues impact suicide attempts. • http://www.yspp.org/about_suicide/statistics.htm • http://www.thetrevorproject.org/pages/suicide-prevention-resources • http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-334.pdf • Discuss the association between bullying and teen suicide. • Peer victimization • Bullying Statistics • Stop Bullying • Teen Bullying and Suicide

11. Presentation Questions • If there is a question you would like to address that you think applies to the topic and it is not listed, no problem! Get your question approved by Mr. Braddock and then you can get working on creating an innovative presentation. • Here are some Facts at a Glance.

12. Youth Suicide Risk Factors • View the PDF regarding youth suicidal behaviors. • Teen Suicide Risk Factors and Prevention • NIMH · Suicide in the U.S.: Statistics and Prevention • CDC - Youth Suicide - Suicide - Violence Prevention - Injury Center • Risk Factors – The Jason Foundation

13. What’s My Responsibility? • The question is yours to ponder, but here are a few links to get you thinking: • http://www.teendepression.org/related/teen-suicide-statistics/ • http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-24.pdf • http://www.helpguide.org/mental/suicide_prevention.htm • http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/school-bullying-statistics.html

14. Survey • Complete the survey found at the following link: • http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/yrbs/pdf/questionnaire/2013_ms_questionnaire.pdf    

15. Final Project Summary Statement • My core values include respect, honesty and integrity. I expect that my actions will be reciprocated by others, no matter if they are positive or negative. I respect others to gain their respect, live honestly to earn honesty from others, and act morally as if no one is watching. The Bible, specifically Matthew Chapter 6, has taught me not to “show off” the good things I do, but to do them in secret and just allow others to enjoy it with no strings attached. • I feel these values allow students to learn to trust me and build a positive relationship with me. Students know that I will only act in their own best interest; that my self sacrifice of my time is for the betterment of their well being. It shows that they need to give me their best, because I will always give them my best.

16. Making My Best Better… • While I feel that I have grown immensely as an educator during my career, I must accept the challenge I impart on my students: make your best even better. In order to do so, I hope to be more informed about social issues so that I might get involved where appropriate to instill change. Especially as I have learned about character education and how to tie it into academic curriculum, I can develop more lessons that allow students to get connected with the material by discussing controversial issues that permit my students to really think about their choices and actions. Simultaneously, my students can observe how I am changing as a mentor while I strive to work on areas of weakness such as self-knowledge. While I am learning, I can share what I am learning with them so that they may add to my understanding while I add to theirs.