Suicide prevention training program gives everyday people skills to intervene

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Suicide prevention training program gives everyday people skills to intervene
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, January 26, 2009

NAPLES, Italy — Donna Lunsford isn’t a busybody.

Far from it. She’s usually shy, reserved, quiet — but very caring.

Lunsford joined 12 others recently in a suicide-prevention class to help her step out of her comfort zone — to “empower” herself, she says, to intervene when she notices if a friend or a neighbor might need help.

About five years ago, a teenager she knew expressed thoughts of suicide. She didn’t know what more to do than to pass her concerns about the teen’s thoughts to a local pastor.

“The training is helping me get over the fear of helping someone, of interfering,” the 54-year-old spouse of a DOD civilian employee said. “You can’t help anybody if you don’t ask.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60255