Suicide Prevention

One of the issues I need to address in my classroom is suicide prevention. Over the years I have brought several students by the hand (gay and straight) to the guidance counselor or the social worker because they have threatened suicide. Luckily they expressed their thoughts to me. Many kids don't feel safe telling anyone they know how deep their despair runs.

A few days ago I looked at website of The Trevor Project, and they have a Trevor Survival kit to advertise their helpline and to deal with teens that may be suicidal. Also they have a workshop kit that is downloadable right from the site. I signed up for the survival kit, and just received an e-mail stating that due to increased demand it may take 6 weeks for it to arrive. So I'm not sure that I should wait that long, I will have to print my own sign. The website also has an "I'm Glad I Failed" campaign for which you can download & print posters and web banners. I think I will put one on my web page, too.

I have gotten quite a bit of buzz from my bulletin board. On Monday, Oct. 18^th, I will be telling the kids that the people on the board are all LGBT. Not one student has guessed correctly, yet. I am going to try to let them lead the discussion on Monday. I think if they ask why I put it up, I will just say that I wanted them to know that there are positive parts of being gay (look what these people accomplished!) and I wanted to them to see that not everything about being gay is negative despite the recent events.
As a follow up activity I am going to distribute an article about one of the teens who committed suicide in the last month. (We read one teacher-selected article each week of the first quarter, so this won't be unusual. Also, I choose articles which address youth issues, class-related issues or news that students will be interested in). I will be neutral. I will be neutral. I will be neutral. I will have the students make up their own discussion questions for this article to avoid being the leader.