Proposal: Suicide Prevention is Everybody’s Business

Suicide Prevention is Everybody’s Business

By Mike Moldeven.

This posting is FYI, but constructive comments will be appreciated:

it’s my practice to occasionally excerpt content from ‘The Weekly Spark,’ published and e-distributed by the ‘Suicide Prevention Resource Center,’ associated with SAMHSA.

Content of SPARK is such that it deserves wide dissemination to personnel, businesses, and otherwise ‘for their Information only.’ ‘My supplemental personal ‘public service’ to e-distribute the ‘SPARK’ publication complies with occasional SPARk and SAMHSA suggestions to readers to send a copy of a pub *to a friend.* THIS POSTING IS CONSISTENT with the suggestion and, to me, to the common sense of increasingly limited GovLoop blog-posting space.

IMO, ‘The Weekly SPARK’ includes highly authoritative ‘mental health’ information that is important, sometimes critical, toward a readership many of whom may be helped by SPARK information, as well as to others who deny or just choose to ignore public contact with any ‘mental health’ resource. Yet, they may take a moment or so to scan an ‘fyi’ invite and, if they are lucky to be drawn to a particular newsy writeup relevant to their own situations, depression, and anxieties. The ‘SPARK, pub’ and its spinoffs often get the attention of and may help ‘survivors of suicides’,as well as professional mental health treatment workers.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) suicide is a major, preventable public health problem. In 2007, it was the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 34,598 deaths. The overall rate was 11.3 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. An estimated 11 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death. Do the math on attempts nationwide. Be aware, too, that there’s about one million suicides per year world wide. So check the math on that!

Content of any single ‘FYI only’ weekly SPARK posting excerpted from the SPRC SPARK will almost certainly exceed the allotted GovLoop — and national — SP website space. Yet, it’s important that SPARK readers be able to see the entire SPARK issue.

Accordingly, I am reactivating my BLOG of about a year or so ago, title: ‘Suicide Prevention is Everybody’s Business’ and will post the SPARK ‘substance’ to my ‘blogger’ blog. I would like to post the latest SPARK ‘substance’ that I receive as soon as possible and, a day or so later, delete the replaced ‘substance.’
I’ll be activating my blog early next week and go on from there. Where I’m coming from is at:

http://mil-civteamworksuicideprevention.blogspot.com/2009/11/memoir-military-civilian-teamwork-in.html
I’m open to suggestions. Mike Moldeven