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NEA Today
‘Are You Thinking About Suicide?’
As suicide rates climb among American teens, educators need to ask and listen.
By Mary Ellen Flannery
“In the last nine days, in just this area, we’ve lost another three
students to suicide,” said Tim Warnock, a physical education teacher in
the suburbs of Phoenix, after a series of student deaths in October
2019.
The numbers are scary and sad, but not shocking to Warnock or his wife
Lorie, a high school English teacher of 28 years. The couple knows all
too well that Arizona’s teen suicide rate has increased 25 percent over
the past three years. “There is a suicide epidemic,” says Lorie Warnock
flatly.
An incredible one in six high school students reported “seriously
considering suicide” in 2017, including nearly one in four girls and
almost half of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. At this
rate, every high school teacher—and many educators of younger
students—knows a student considering suicide. But these young people
can be kept safe, experts say.
“This topic can be really overwhelming. It can feel like, ‘Oh my gosh,
is there nothing we can do as a society?’” says psychologist Lindsey
Giller of the Child Mind Institute. “There are things we can do.
Suicides can be prevented.”
Recognizing risk factors is one thing. What’s more important is knowing
to pull up a chair and ask, “Are you thinking of suicide?”—and when you
hear yes, knowing where to take your student for help. Making real
connections with students can protect them from dying of suicide or
even thinking about it, experts say.
The Warnocks point out that this requires educators to see students as
more than numbers or test scores. “We need to remember that we’re
shaping human beings,” says Lorie Warnock.
This past September, after more than two years of meeting with state
legislators, coordinating anti-suicide activists, and marshaling media
attention, the Warnocks watched Arizona’s governor sign a law requiring
the state’s educators to get suicide-prevention training.
It’s called the Mitch Warnock Act—for their brown-eyed son, who ended his life on October 17, 2016, at the age of 18.
“I found him,” says Tim Warnock, his voice breaking. “There’s no way to
understand how painful that is. There’s no way to understand this level
of grief.”
“You would have loved him. Everybody
loved him,” says Tim Warnock, pictured above with Lorie and Mitch Warnock.
Meet Mitch
When Lorie and Tim first met Mitch, he was 2 years old, fighting for
food and bouncing between foster homes. For the next two years, he
slept alongside them. He grew up to be “incredibly compassionate,
incredibly caring,” says Lorie Warnock—”the kind of kid who picks up
his phone and says to a friend, ‘Hey, let’s go hike the mountain
today.’” When his mother would sigh about the kids who put their feet
up on her couch, he’d point out that nobody had taught them otherwise.
As a high school junior, he placed third in the state in pole vault—a
devastating loss, in his opinion. A third-place finish, he believed,
wouldn’t get him to college. His parents were frustrated in their
attempts to connect him with support at school.
“When he passed away, I fully believe this, he thought we would be
better off without him. He saw no way out,” says Tim Warnock. “It was
an impulsive decision, made out of pain and a belief that he was
sparing us heartache by dying.”
Today’s teens are the most anxious and depressed ever, according to
health surveys. In 2017, about 10 percent experienced “a major
depressive episode with severe impairment,” according to the National
Institute of Mental Health. This means at least two weeks with little
sleep, energy, and low self-esteem, and an inability to participate in
life’s activities, including school.
Meanwhile, a 2019 CDC report shows the number of young people dying of
suicide jumped 56 percent between 2007 and 2017, outpacing any other
group. Researchers have struggled to say why, but point to a variety of
possible root causes, including social media and smartphones, bullying,
and lack of community.
Answering a Cry for Help
Florida high school teacher Dorothy Schroader tells her students all
the time: I am here for you. She recalls a student who left a scribbled
note on the bottom of an English assignment, saying simply, “Write
back. Help!”
“I got a guidance counselor, and called her in,” Schroader recalls. “Do
you want to kill yourself?” they asked. “Yes.” “When?” “Today.” She
planned to cut her wrists.
On another day, a different girl came to school with a bag of pills
that she stashed in Schroader’s classroom closet, saying, “You need to
have these.”
“The suicide attempts are just unmanageable,” says Lisa Parker, a
school social worker in Rhode Island who works with kids at risk of
suicide, who live with suicidal thoughts, and who return to school
after hospitalization for suicidal attempts. “I can’t even wrap my head
around what’s happening … I’m seeing more kids coming back from the
hospital who I’ve never even met. How is it that I don’t even know you,
and you just tried to die?”
The major risk factors for suicide may be hidden to educators. They
include firearms at home, a family history of mental-health concerns,
and substance abuse disorders.
“It may be helpful for teachers and school communities to know that
half of all cases of mental-health illnesses begin by age 14, and half
of all kids ages 8 to 15 don’t get treatment,” Giller says. “These kids
really need to be linked up to the help they need.”
Exposure to bullying—as a victim or perpetrator—is a risk factor for
suicide. Also, if a student previously attempted suicide, they are at
higher risk to try again and need to be monitored.
Be on alert, and don’t be afraid to step in. You may have a perspective
that a parent is missing. “If any kid is talking about or writing about
suicide, or if you hear a kid has posted something online about wanting
to die, these kids need to speak to somebody,” Giller says. Also, be
alert to students who talk about feeling hopeless or worthless, who
suddenly look more depressed and withdrawn, who give away their stuff,
or who engage in risky behaviors, such as reckless driving or substance
abuse.
You need to talk to these students and be explicit in your questions,
says Giller. It’s not true that asking, “Are you thinking about
suicide?” will plant the seed. Kids who aren’t living with suicidal
thoughts will just say no. For others, that question can be a
lifesaver. “Your question provides them a place and space to talk about
it,” she says. “It says you don’t need to suffer in silence or suffer
alone, we’ll connect you with support. It gives them hope.”
Training to Save Lives
The Mitch Warnock Act isn’t the only state law requiring educators to
learn more about suicide. Eleven states require annual training for
school personnel, and 20 others require it every two to five years,
according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
“We’re not asking anybody to be a counselor,” says Tim Warnock, of the
Arizona law. “We’re asking them to be aware of a student’s humanity and
their social-emotional well-being. It’s exactly like if a teacher saw a
bruise, or heard a kid talk about being abused, and they would know how
to respond and report it.”
Often educators recognize they need more. In 2018, NEA-Rhode Island
(NEARI) hosted its first all-day, mental-health summit, where hundreds
of educators learned about suicide prevention and more. At the same
time, the union issued a “statement of values on mental health” that
calls for additional training for educators and hiring of counselors.
“Teachers are being presented with more and more students who have
serious diagnoses,” says Parker, a leader of NEARI’s mental-health
committee. “If we can give them some tools to use—think of it as
mental-health first aid—they can get started.”
Denver music teacher Tim Brown has provided training at the NEA
Leadership Summit and NEA Representative Assembly, offering educators
the basics in suicide SafeTALK—Suicide Alertness for Everyone: Tell,
Ask, Listen, Keep Safe. “What are the ways in which people ‘tell us’
they are thinking of suicide?” he asks. Ask students questions
directly, clearly, and non-judgmentally, and “listen for what they need
to say—not what we hope they might say,” he advises educators.
Meanwhile, the St. Paul Federation of Educators has made mental health
its primary issue at the bargaining table. Their contract proposal
calls for every St. Paul public school serving K-12 students to be
staffed by a mental-health team with licensed staff in these positions:
psychologist, counselor, social worker, and nurse, as well as
behavioral-support specialists or equivalent education support
professionals.
The idea is that “every student in every school should have a qualified
provider to help them navigate mental health,” says Tom Stinson, a St.
Paul school nurse for 22 years and member of SPFE’s contract bargaining
team.
Speaking Up for Student Health
Off-campus advocacy also helps. More than 25,000 educators rallied in
Portland, Ore., this past spring, wearing #RedForEd shirts and
pressuring lawmakers to support students. Among the speakers was
Roberto Aguilar, a high school counselor from Milwaukie, Ore., and a
former Oregon counselor of the year. “I started out by describing a
frequent day—there’s a kid crying, his heart is racing, [he’s having]
difficulty breathing,” Aguilar recounts. “Who is going to take care of
that student?”
The answer is Aguilar and his colleagues. The problem, Aguilar told the
crowd, is that he has a caseload of “480-something” students. “I feel
like I’m failing because I can’t get to all of my kids,” he says.
Meanwhile, his county has the highest rate of suicide in Oregon.
State lawmakers listened. Oregon’s Student Success Act of 2019, funded
through corporate taxes, will deliver $1 billion annually to schools,
including $500 million for mental and behavioral health supports and
academic programs.
Other union-led #RedForEd efforts also have resulted in mental-health
investments. In Los Angeles, for example, a six-day strike last year
led to a commitment to hire 17 new counselors.
Welcome to Roberto Aguilar’s office! An Oregon school counselor of the
year, Aguilar is in his 20th year at Milwaukie High School—where, like
counselors everywhere, he sees more students with mental-health issues.
So many students need support, says Aguilar. But the student-to-school
counselor ratio in Oregon is 571:1, more than double the recommended
workload. Meanwhile, Aguilar’s county has the highest suicide rate in
the state.
By the 23rd day of school this year, Aguilar and his colleagues had
worked on six formal “suicide assessments” that involve putting
together safety plans for students in danger of self-harm. Two
additional kids have been hospitalized for suicidal ideas.
More school funding has to be part of the solution. Last year, Aguilar
spoke at Oregon’s massive #RedforEd rally, where he shared an “average
day.” “It’s first thing in the morning, a kid is crying, heart
racing…who takes care of him? The school counselor.”
Aguilar’s caseload is 480 students. “I feel like I’m failing because I
can’t get to all of my kids,” he says. The stress has exacerbated his
own anxiety. One thing he says has been helpful is a “Sources of
Strength” program that empowers student-led wellness teams.
Making a Connection
The American School Counselor Association calls for a 250-to-1 ratio of
students-to-counselor, but only three states—New Hampshire, Vermont,
and Wyoming—meet it. The national average is 482-to-1, or nearly double
the recommendation. The worst offender? It’s Arizona, where each
counselor has an average of 924 students.
“When my son passed away from suicide, I was obviously in the throes of
grief, but I also was furious as an educator,” says Lorie Warnock.
“What I’ve seen over my career makes me furious. For me, what happened
to my son was, in part, a byproduct of how we have come to treat
students.”
The relentless focus on measurable achievement—test scores, graduation
rates, etc.—and the growing standardization of curriculum has turned
students and educators into “widgets,” and has pushed aside students’
social and emotional needs, she says.
Connect to your students, urge the Warnocks. Help them connect to each
other, to clubs and activities, to community organizations. “I tell my
[students], the academics are the icing,” says Lorie Warnock. “When it
comes down to what’s important, you are the cake. You are the
foundation.”
What do you do?
IF YOU THINK A STUDENT MAY BE SUICIDAL?
“We know that talking about suicide, or asking kids if they’re thinking
about suicide, doesn’t increase the odds of that child attempting
suicide,” says Child Mind Institute’s Lindsey Giller. “If anything, it
decreases them.” You want to talk with these students, connect them to
mental-health services, and keep checking in with them, building trust
and making sure they know you care. “This feeling of connectedness is
one that we want to build and foster,” she says.
IF A STUDENT HAS DIED OF SUICIDE?
“Among schools and communities, there’s an urge not to talk about it …
but if there’s been a suicide by a student, it’s important for it to be
acknowledged in a matter-of-fact way, without providing a ton of
details about the method or how it occurred,” says Giller. “You want to
prevent sensationalizing. But we know kids will find ways to talk about
it through back channels. If there’s a guidance counselor or somebody
on the mental-health front, they should explain in a developmentally
appropriate way that suicide is the result of an untreated
mental-health challenge or psychiatric illness.” It’s also important,
in the wake of a suicide, to monitor kids at higher risk, she says.
RESOURCES
>Child Mind Institute has educator resources at
childmind.org/audience/for-educators. Also check out their
suicide-specific resources at
childmind.org/topics/concerns/suicide-and-self-harm.
>If you’re interested in bringing more training to your school,
check out safeTALK, a half-day program for educators, offered through
the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Visit
sprc.org/resources-programs/suicidealertness-everyone-safetalk.
>According to federal data, nearly one in two gay, lesbian, or
bisexual students have considered suicide. So that you can help them,
check out the online Lifeguard Workshop and curriculum resources from
the Trevor Project at thetrevorproject.org/education.
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