Wellness Wednesdays - September is Suicide Prevention Month

A Video Message from Susan Lee

about Suicide Prevention

September is Suicide Prevention Month. An excellent resource for information and support is The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), the nation’s largest nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention, which works in partnership with Mental Health America. AFSP also has a broad array of services, supports, and resources to assist and support people.

It is important to know that there are tools, resources, and sources of information, help, and support out there. They may not be simple to find during moments of crisis, but we need to share them with people as often as we can so that everyone knows where to access them whenever questions about suicide arise.

Suicide rates have been increasing in the United States. It was a suicide in a church in Texas that led to the formation and launch of the Comfort My People initiative with PCUSA, and our grant here at the Presbytery of St. Augustine. Many of us believe that we can help prevent suicide. The most important thing we can do to prevent suicide, the number one cause of death, is to bring this fight against suicide out into the open.

What we CAN do is talk about our suicide prevention efforts and point the media and individuals toward the resources we have amassed to prevent suicides, to identify mental health concerns and conditions early - B 4 Stage 4, and to address the risks and causes of suicide as aggressively as we do the risks and causes of other ways we experience untimely deaths.

There’s always hope. I hope these resources will help – and let’s keep the conversation going.

Susan Lee, LCSW,

Your Comfort My People Coach

Email MyCMPCoach@gmail.com

Facilitator of the Presbytery of St. Augustine's

Comfort My People: Mental Health in Healthy Congregations

Comfort My People Webpage

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