Southeast hosts events for suicide-prevention awareness

Southeast Missouri State University looks to increase suicide-prevention awareness on campus with targeted events through Sept. 24, including a build-your-own de-stress kit, depression screenings and a memorial balloon release.

Torie Grogan, director of counseling and disability services, said suicide-prevention awareness events help to break the stigma associated with talking about suicide and educate people on risk factors and warning signs.

The awareness events will conclude Sept. 24 with the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk at Cape County Park North.

Southeast will host its own Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk in April, but Grogan said this month’s walk, hosted by the Eastern Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, “helps students connect not only to campus resources, but also to community providers that are great outlets for our students.”

Grogan said the 2016 Out of the Darkness Walk raised more than $18,000 and had about 500 participants.

“These events bring in a lot of people who are affected differently by suicide,” Grogan said. “We want to offer counseling and individual resources along with the outreach-focused activities for folks who are supportive of the cause and really want to create awareness.”

The month’s events welcome all those who have lost someone to suicide; those who want to learn, be an advocate and show support; and those who are interested in prevention, breaking the stigma and starting a conversation.

On Wednesday, the RedHawk Health Educators student organization provided an opportunity for students to build their own de-stress kits with items such as stress balls.

The event also launched Body U, an online resource to screen for depression and eating disorders.

Today, free and confidential depression screenings will be offered by Counseling and Disability Services and the Counselor Education Training Clinic.

The event also will promote Ask, Listen, Refer, a suicide-prevention and awareness-training module that covers risk factors and warning signs and is loaded with campus and community resources.

Screenings will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the University Center third-floor lobby and at the River Campus in the Dobbins Center.

On Friday, there will be a Suicide Prevention Awareness balloon release at noon on the steps of Academic Hall. It will offer an opportunity for supporters and survivors of suicide to recognize anyone they have lost to suicide by releasing a balloon in their honor.

On Sunday, the Community Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk, hosted by the Eastern Missouri Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, will take place at Cape County Park North in Cape Girardeau.

Organized by the not-for-profit American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the walk raises funds to create educational programs, invest in new research, advocate for public policy and support survivors of suicide loss.