Suicide prevention. Schools to get $400,000 for training.

More comprehensive measure failed in state legislature after age-limits debate

Colorado schools will soon divide $400,000 into small grants to pay for suicide-prevention training for all campus employees, including teachers, frontdesk attendants and custodians. The training, supporters say, is designed to bolster the fight against a rising tide of suicides by youths.

But a more comprehensive suicide-prevention measure that backers say would have done more to help troubled teens was nixed by Colorado lawmakers during the 2018 sessions. The proposal was attacked largely over a provision to lower the age from 15 to 12 that children could get therapy without parental consent.

“I just didn’t see any good reason for this bill to be killed, no reason,” said state Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat who, with state Sen. Don Coram, a Montrose Republican, co-sponsored the failed measure, House Bill 1177. “The argument was that we were taking away parents’ rights and we were breaking down the fiber of the family.

“But we all know kids are the master of disguises, and if we don’t think these kids are hurting, then we are missing the story.”

The school training grants — from $5,000 to $10,000 for each campus — will be available in January and must be used to train all school personnel on the warning signs of impending suicide attempts, diffuse crisis situations and connect troubled people to mental health services.

The grants were authorized through Senate Bill 272 which was co-sponsored by Republican Beth Martinez Humenik of Thornton and Democrat Nancy Todd of Aurora. It got bipartisan support and passed just before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that suicide rates in Colorado saw a 34.1 percent increase between 1999 and 2016.

In Colorado, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-24. And it’s mostly because youths today face unprecedented pressures from modern society and social media, Shannon Hawley said.

Hawley, a former gang member who tried to commit suicide by cop in Greeley, began a suicideprevention group after three Greeley teens killed themselves in a span of a week in March.

“I believe our youth are under so much pressure to try and fit in,” Hawley said. “Always after the latest fashion trying to be like their rich music idol. Trying to be part of something by taking part in a foolish online challenge.”

Hawley said suicide-prevention

training should not be limited to teachers and others who deal with particular age groups. “Nor should we put an age requirement on our youth seeking counseling,” Hawley said. “Suicide does not discriminate on age. We have 10- and-11year-old babies who are taking their own lives.”

The grants will be especially useful in Colorado’s rural school districts, which don’t have ready access to school therapists and counselors, officials say.

The suicide rate among rural Coloradans ages 1519 is double the rate of their peers in the state’s more urban areas.

“I think this will be a huge lift for them, and it will provide resources that otherwise would be lacking,” said Jon Widmier, executive director for student services in the Jefferson County School District.

HB 1177 would have called for suicide-prevention training for a wider group of people who interact with kids, including camp counselors, clergy and recreation-center employees. It also would have created a “youthfriendly, culturally sensitive” website that highlights mental health resources in Colorado in addition to lowering the age of consent to see a therapist on a confidential basis.

But the bill was killed in the Republic-controlled Senate over additional concerns that the measure could lead to violations of federal reporting requirements, Michaelson Jenet said.

The measure would have gone toward provid- ing needed help to the youngest students who are thinking about suicide as a solution to their problems, she said.

“I only wish I could have had the same kind of support offered under this bill,” said Michaelson Jenet, whose son attempted suicide when he was 9. “I couldn’t find the support to help my kid, and I want other kids to have more options”

The Colorado Department of Health and Environment gets $539,000 in state money for suicide prevention for all age groups, as well as $736,000 from a five-year federal grant to reduce youth suicide in eight Colorado counties. Those counties are Delta, El Paso, Jefferson, Larimer, Mesa, Montezuma, Pueblo and Weld.

Attorney General Cynthia Coffman also started a $173,000 effort that will analyze the trends and patterns in youth suicide behavior in four counties with the highest rates of youth suicide: El Paso, La Plata, Mesa and Pueblo.

The school grants are important because they will be seed money for larger efforts aimed at suicide prevention in schools over the next several years, said Sarah Brummett, director of the office of suicide prevention at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Metro-area schools districts, including Jefferson County Public Schools and Denver Public Schools, have their own far-reaching suicide prevention programs.

At DPS, the Signs of Suicide curriculum — taught in sixth and ninth grades — focuses on supporting students to identify warning signs of depression and reporting to a trusted adult, say officials.