Healthy Kids Healthy Futures: Preventing suicide among youth

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A young person dying due to feeling hopeless and alone is devastating.

In the Central Valley, there are trainings and screenings implemented to identify those at risk.

Children and teens can experience the same emotions as adults.

According to health experts at Valley Children's Hospital, their feelings can be more intense, and oftentimes, hard for them to understand.

"Creating a safe space and being able to communicate with a child within the range of their language development, their emotional development, being able to simplify it and talk and ask in words that they can understand," said Deonna Villegas-McPeters, Director of Patient and Family Services. "The Social Work Department has dolls. We have multicultural dolls, we have animals and we have different resources that we use."

This method helps Valley Children's staff assess their patients for a possible suicide risk.

In addition, since January 2022, the hospital has implemented a universal screening process. It's for patients 12 years or older in the emergency department, day surgery and acute care units.

"If a child is presenting with moderate or high risk based upon their answers, it then triggers a process where then a social worker will actually then meet with that patient, their caregiver and ask more comprehensive questions -- just to identify what the risk is at the time that the child is there," Villegas-McPeters said.

Something similar to the screening is available to students and staff at Fresno State.

It's called the QPR Training -- which stands for Question, Persuade and Refer.

"It's really just a way to have a conversation with an individual and then to get eventually to the point where you're talking about available resources," said health educator Georgianna Negron-long. "Then of course, we tell them about resources -- not just on campus, but also in the community."

QPR Training must be requested.

"Professors will invite us into the classroom, or oftentimes, like different departments that have like peer mentorship groups on campus -- like we have our Upward Bound, it's an upcoming one that we're going to be doing for the students that are actually going to be working with K through 12 students over the summer," said Negron-long.

While studies show youth suicides in California increased during the pandemic, some health experts remain hopeful that this same generation will reduce the stigma surrounding mental health.

"The generation coming behind us is so powerful in so many ways in terms of being open and talking about it," Villegas-McPeters said.

They're hoping it will lead to an increase in young people reaching out for help when feeling hopeless and alone.

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