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COUN 6785: Social Change in Action:

Prevention, Consultation, and Advocacy

Social Change Portfolio

K. Mclean

Introduction

In my community the suicide rate has risen again.  Many teenagers, adolescent and adults are committing suicide.  Tennessee suicide rate is the highest it has been in 5 years according to the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network.  They stated the most deaths were white, middle aged males that have decided to terminate their live.  This is a deep concern that needs to be addressed at every level. If we do not create an effective prevention plan to reduce the suicide rate our communities will suffer greatly. Although the rate is high for the middle aged males I want to expound on the adolescents and teens suicide and how we can reduce the numbers.

Scope and Consequences

The adolescents and teenagers numbers for suicide have risen and the people that are terminating their lives are not your typical individuals.  These are leaders in different positions at school, in academics, sports, and on the honor roll. We are also seeing children that have experienced trauma committing suicide as well.  We are seeing adolescents and teens that have been victims of bullying mentally and/or physically committing suicide. Although when a peer committes suicide it effects other students from school that knew the victim. It can have a different affect on people, one person can cry and keep going where the other person my break down and cannot concentrate or function in school for a while. So many different things goes through the survivor’s mind especially if they were close to the suicide victim.

According to Rollinghilldhospital.org, the teen suicide has risen from 2005 at 855 a year to 1163 in 2017.  In the U.S. more than 47,137 adolescent or teen have committed suicide from the ages of 10 years to 24.  They have listed suicide by age groups and the highest rate ages where from 35 years to 54 years of age.  Then they listed them by Race/Ethnicity; Black-6.0%, Hispanic-7.3%, White-19.9%.  

Suicide is not restricted nor unknown within the religious, ethnis or socioeconomic group. People from different walks of life can suffer devastation that leads to mental illness or severe emotional trauma that can lead them to terminate their life.

Mental health problems are very costly to the one that suffers and to to society. Personal costs of these issues are, mental anguish, financial and relationships strain, difficulty struggling to perform day to day activities, Conyne and Horne, (2013). Suicide ideations can affect their role within the family especially if it is a parent.

An examination of workplace costs of major depressive disorder which can lead to suicide is estimated $36.6 billion per year in salary equivalent to lost productivity (Kessler et al., 2006).

Other ways the community is affected by the individual that are suffering from a mental illness local clusters of suicide that have a contagious influence. The unemployment rates suffers because of the ones that are hurting and do not want to work or cannot mentally. We have some people that have suicidal ideations that have access to lethal weapons and can and do hurt others in their community.

If we do not get a hold on this epidemic it can become a contagious influence on many. Also, if we don’t help the hurting individuals our communities will suffer from the lack of participation with politic, laws, and policies. Just as homelessness is hurting the community so is suicide and people suffering from major depression.

People bereaved by suicide are likely to go through a lot of negative feelings such as guilt, grief, they may feel responsible for the death, anger, questioning to why, abandonment and rejestion (Jordan, 2011: Sveen & Walbym 2008). It has been reported that some people have a lack of energy and anger toward somebody else. Again if we do not get a handle on people terminatting their life our communities will suffer from job loss because people do not have the energy or motivation to work.

Goal Statement

I would like offer an education group in school for students that are having suicidal thoughts and depressive feelings in hopes to reduce any suicide occurrences. Also, I would like to offer a curriculum on the dangers of suicidal ideations and what it can do.

Social-Ecological Model

In the U.S one of the leading methods that suicide victims are using is firearms. In the last decade over 399,157 people terminated their lives and 201,875 died by using a firearm (Allchin, Chaplin & Horwitz, 2019). Firearm methods for suicide are raising and males used firearms six times more than females. Age adjusted males 11.95 per 100,00 and females 1.93 per 100,00 in 2016. The rate of males suicide by age peaked at 85 years 37.44 per 100,00 in 2016. The rate of females suicide by ages peaked at 50 and 54 years that is 3.55 per 100,00 in 2016, after 54 years it starts to decline (Allchin, Chaplin & Horwits, 2019).

Race differences using firearms are white males are the highest at 13.54, next is American Indian at 8.69 and Alaskan Native at 5.50; Blacks, Asian and Pacific Islander males at 3.03 per 100,00 in 2016. It is the same pattern for females, Whites 2.28, American Indian at 1.28, Alaskan Native at 0.79 and Blacks, Asian and Pacific Islander at 0.37 per 100,000 in 2016.

The public sector health influence of suicide on households and m=communities is huge, and suicide loss survivors are at a higher risk to commit suicide themselves (Allchin, Chaplin & Horwitz, 2019). As well as the one bereaving over the loss it can effect them mentally to limit their social functioning and their mortality. There are several risk factors to why people commit suicide, alcohol and substance abuse, major mental issues and or some type of trauma within the last few weeks. There have been several research conducted that states it is to easy for people to get firearms which is why they use them. One study found that a gun ownership and state-wide suicide numbers, states gun ownership attributed 92%. A meta-analysis was conducted that stated of individual access to guns in the home was three-fold. Almost all lethal use for suicide are successful. We need restrictive laws on the access to lethal weapons. We need to educate our children on the harm and dangers of using firearms. We need to go to the policy holder and the government to make stricter laws on the purchase of weapons. As well as teach parents on the security and hiding and locking the weapons in the home.

The key factor leading to suicide is unbearable mental anguish. According to the CDC approximately 45% of people who died by suicide visited their primary physician within a month of their death without talking about their suicide desires and ideations.

The CDC gives valuable guidelines based on the assumption that prevention efforts for any health or disease problems require integrated multi-level efforts within a Social Ecological Model (SEM) (Centers for Disease Control Prevention, 2017).

A risk factor is something that create problems and a protective factor is something that prevents isuues.

Individual

Biological risk factors: male sex (terminate life) female sex (attempted) Serotonin dysfunction, family history of suicidal behavior, access to lethal weapons and pills. Biological protective factors: SSRI practice, Lithium mood support treatment, and clozapine use. Education on depressive moods and suicidal ideations.

Socio-Demographic

Risk factors: LBQT status, thinking suicide is the answer, culture ethnicity, older and middle aged adults, high risk jobs, like law enforcement and military, Firearen businesses, being Incarceration, high stress levels, job loss/unemployed, financial burden, recently discharged from a mental institution and bullying. Protective factors: heterosexual sexual orientation, religiosity/spirituality thoughts on suicide perceived wrong

Interpersonal/Relationship

Risk factors: living in homes that have firearms, subjection to suicide, family conflict or violence, family history of mental illness or suicide and/or attempts, death of a love one, withdrawal and social isolation, and someone exposed to combat.

Protective factors: social support, knowledge on suicide and is harmful to the family, social connection, help pursuing actions, connecting to healthcare providers, and cognitive behavior therapy and DBT (Caine, 2013).

Theories of Prevention

Diversity and Ethical Considerations

Advocacy

[Please provide an introductory paragraph about your Social Change Portfolio topic here. This should just be one paragraph somewhat similar to an abstract that includes about 5 to 8 sentences introducing your topic and location. Please write in full sentences using APA style].

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