Preventing Adolescent Suicide

Preventing adolescent suicide must be a joint mission of the school, family and community. Schools can help by providing sympathetic counsellors, peer support groups, and information about telephone hotlines. Once a teenager takes steps toward suicide, staying with the young person, listening and expressing sympathy and concern until professional help can be obtained is essential. Some of the positive steps in preventing adolescent suicide are the following:

·         Provide instant crisis intervention to help the adolescent to cope with immediate life crisis.

·         Provide mental health education to help children learn how to solve problems and cope with stress.

·         Organize school programmes to boost up self-esteem of young children.

·         Identify high risk adolescent and offer guidance and counselling.

·         Start a crisis centre or telephone hot line at district level to offer immediate support as well as referral to mental health professionals.

·         Launch a centralized programme to identify the cases of attempted suicide in each district and to provide them remedial intervention.

·         Many suicides are impulsive; if a convenient means is not at hand, the depressed person may not go any further or may at least defer action long enough to get help. So, take steps to reduce access to common methods of suicide such as firearms, poisons etc..

·         Picking up on the signals that a troubled teenager send is a crucial first step in suicide prevention. Train teachers and family members in warning signs, so that they can make effective intervention to prevent suicide.

·         Give the suicidal teen the chance to open up and talk about his or her feelings. This will help relieve some of the distress of those intense emotions, and make that person feel less alone.