Reaching young people with time to spare
Suicide prevention specialist returns to Rapp to educate students — and parents — about positive outreach
It was in February that Rappahannock County Public Schools announced the findings of its 2019 PRIDE Survey, which revealed in part that 1 in 3 students in grades 7 through 12 — 35 percent of Rappahannock students canvassed — checked the “struggling with depression” box.
A higher 45 percent of the 238 students polled are said to be battling with “anxiety,” determined the survey conducted one month into the current 2019-20 school year.
Separately, a periodic School Climate Survey released in 2019 found that 17 percent of Rappahannock County High School students “seriously thought about suicide.”
RCPS Superintendent Dr. Shannon Grimsley told the Rappahannock News upon those findings: “We haven’t seen it that high, and we give the test every two years.”
Enter Alan Rasmussen, for 17 years a prevention specialist in the behavioral healthcare division of Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services, which serves Rappahannock, Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison and Orange counties:
“What’s the big deal about that? Unhelped depression is the leading cause of suicidal behavior. And then you find a smaller reduced percentage from there who are having thoughts of suicide. And then another smaller reduced percentage who actually made plans. And then another percent have attempted.
“So we have youth at risk in our schools, in our community. And I’m out here trying to help.”
As in being on hand at Rappahannock High School to meet — and more importantly teach — students and parents alike coinciding with last Friday’s parent-teacher conferences.
“Since 2004 I’ve been doing suicide prevention work in the communities of the five county area I cover,” the specialist told the Rappahannock News during a break in his discussions. “As you know we had a couple of tragedies, losses to suicide, in Culpeper when I first started doing prevention work in 2003. So my boss said, ‘Hey, we need to work to create a suicide prevention program — comprehensively set up a program for the five county area.’ So I started in Culpeper.”
Rasmussen in short order became certified as “a gatekeeper trainer — so I could teach adults and young people how to recognize the signs of somebody who might be suicidal and how to link them to help. I also started building coalitions, where you bring community partners together to help address this issue.”
At about the same time, in September 2003, college student Garrett Smith, the 21-year-old son of then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, died by suicide. The next year President George W. Bush authorized $82 million for student suicideprevention and awareness programs.
“That made suicide prevention monies available as a federal grant,” Rasmussen noted. “Our state of Virginia got some of those funds and then created four pilots sites in Virginia to address suicide preventions, so our area was named one of the four pilot sites…
“At this point I’ve trained over forty-thousand adults and young people — most of the people I’ve trained are young people, the students. I was just in Orange where I trained 1,528 high school students. Monday and Tuesday I did sixth graders… over 300 students there,” he said.
“We do 6th grade through 12th grade, adults of all ages, seniors on down, parents. Anybody can make a difference. This is a community issue and we need to have everybody involved to address it. There’s been an uptick in youth suicide. Every time one of these surveys is done it reveals that about one-third of the students are depressed or show signs of depression.”
The PRIDE Survey conducted in RCPS in September was overseen by the Mental Health Association of Fauquier County, Fauquier CADRE, and the PATH Foundation. It is one of the largest instruments used nationwide to gauge everything from adolescent drug use to mental health and is utilized by hundreds of school systems.
Narrowing in on the mental health statistics for Rappahannock, 23 percent of students said that if they were experiencing intense feelings of sadness or were wanting to hurt themselves they might not seek help because they would worry about what others might think.
On a brighter side, another 59 percent reported that they would go to a friend if they were experiencing intense feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety, or were wanting to hurt themselves. This reinforces the need for all students to be educated and trained on how to help peers who are struggling and how to refer them to appropriate resources within the school.
“It's about having young people trained,” Rasmussen stressed Friday. “Because when there is a young person in distress somebody knows. It’s not always the adults. It’s not always the parents. But definitely another group that would know is the young people. So we need them. That’s why we do this program.”
As he spoke with this newspaper, RCHS Principal Jimmy Swindler made an announcement over the school PA system that the prevention specialist was available to meet with any interested parents in the high school gymnasium.
“I’m trying to reach the parents tonight,” Rasmussen said. “I’ve [spoken today to] the high school students, the middle school students, and the [RCPS] administration has been great to set this up and let it happen. This is a great school and county to be doing this…
“I know some [Rappahannock] kids have been identified, have been helped. And that’s what it’s about.”
“...When there is a young person in distress somebody knows. It’s not always the adults. It’s not always the parents. But definitely another group that would know is the young people. So we need them.”
Alan Rasmussen
Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services