Program Will Teach People How To Help Prevent Suicide
By Paul Gingras

An expert in suicide prevention will give a free program for the public at the St. Ignace Middle School cafeteria Tuesday, November 20, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The program by Michael Powers will teach people how to recognize and help loved ones or friends who may be suicidal. It will include a question-and-answer period and is hosted by two local suicide prevention groups, A Sense of Life and the Lucas Izzard Foundation for Teens (LIFT).

A behavioral health therapist in Sault Ste. Marie, Mr. Powers has 20 years of experience in the field. He is part of the Mackinac County Human Services Collaborative Body and works on suicide prevention in Chippewa County.

The seminar in St. Ignace is extremely important and welltimed, Mr. Powers told The St. Ignace News. Suicide prevention work is critical, especially around the holidays, when suicide rates increase, he said, noting that the presentation takes place two days before Thanksgiving.

"Holidays are not a good time for many people," he said. The public needs to know how to spot those in serious distress and be equipped with the tools to help them, he said.

"What I hope to bring to [the St. Ignace area] is awareness," Mr. Powers said.

"Most people who feel suicidal do not want to die, but they are in so much pain that death is the only answer they see," he said. Most people considering taking their own lives send signals that others can learn to identify.

His presentation will help everyday people to look at someone

and recognize suicidal signs and teach them what to do to help.

There are three main aspects to dealing with potentially suicidal people: prevention, intervention, and postvention, which is help for family and caregivers following a suicide. The talk in St. Ignace will focus on prevention and intervention.

To prevent suicides, Mr. Powers will teach his audience how to determine when a person may be considering taking their own life. Then, he will offer simple methods of intervention.

One method is to "normalize" a person's grief and enable that person to talk about it, he explained.

One approach, he said, is to say, "I have a feeling you are having a hard time. Tell me about it."

Eventually, carefully, the helper can tell the person that he once heard someone else talking similarly, and that the person was considering suicide.

Normalizing the situation allows the person to feel more comfortable talking about their feelings. Once the helper has determined if someone is suicidal, then he can decide what to do next. The program in St. Ignace will help, Mr. Powers said.

Preventing suicides is not restricted to adults. Young people can connect a desperate friend to a guidance counselor, for example. The important thing, he said, is to be a link.

"Even if you are not a therapist who knows how to work with someone who is suicidal, you are a valuable resource to someone who might be feeling that way, because you can ask the right questions and connect that person to the right help," he said.

While the program is open to all, those who may benefit particularly from the upcoming program include pastors, educators, nurses, doctors, and others who may come into contact with distraught people more frequently than the average person.

"About 60% of people who commit suicide see their primary care physician within 30 days of their death," he said. "This makes it very important for doctors, nurses, and lab folks to know what signs to look for, and to know what to do."

To assess how prevalent suicide is in a given area, one must focus on certain groups, Mr. Powers said. Suicides in the Eastern Upper Peninsula are uncommon, but they reflect national trends. Here, as in the rest of the United States, the groups at highest risk are the elderly and teenagers.

Three times more women than men attempt suicide, but among men who do, they are three times more likely to die.

Essentially, men choose more lethal methods, he explained.

Community awareness and prevention is important to head off a devastating phenomenon called "suicide clusters," Mr. Powers said. This is mimicking behavior. For example, in a Native American community in Portland, Oregon, an instance of clustering has led to more than 22 suicides, Mr. Powers said. It is a dangerous situation in which one person's suicide is seen to validate another.

Mr. Powers is former chairman of the Eastern Upper Peninsula Crisis Response Team and remains an active member of that group. He is also a trainer for the Marylandbased International Critical Incident

Stress Foundation, and the Massachusetts-based Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

One area of Mr. Powers' work that will not be covered at the seminar is postvention. The idea is to help reduce the emotional recoil of someone confronted with a traumatic situation. This is what he works on with the Eastern Upper Peninsula Crisis Response Team.

The idea is to "rescue our rescuers," he said. The therapy helps police and rescue workers who have witnessed the aftermath of serious accidents, for example.

"We need those people. We do not want them to burn out," he said.

No registration is necessary for Mr. Powers' talk at St. Ignace Middle School. For additional information, call (906) 632-5467.