Asking a tough question for suicide prevention

"Suicide prevention experts say it is too early to claim success or attribute the potential drop to any one program."

How is this news? How many times will we read about the numbers going up right after another program has made the news? We keep finding out that nothing is really changing in these attempts to get ahead of all of this, yet then we read more members of the military have committed suicide. "Attribute the potential drop?" What the hell is that supposed to mean?

Asking a tough question for suicide prevention
By ERIK SLAVIN
Stars and Stripes
Published: November 17, 2010
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — “Are you thinking about killing yourself?”

It is one of the toughest questions that Petty Officer 3rd Class David Callahan and others who recently became “suicide first-aid responders” at bases in mainland Japan and Okinawa could imagine asking anybody. It is uncomfortable to do even in a role-playing exercise.

For Callahan, the courage to ask comes from knowing that the number of servicemembers dying by suicide has risen sharply over the past decade.

“Those people that died weren’t asked the question,” Callahan said last week by phone from Misawa Air Base. “Asking the question, no matter how hard or painful, might save a life — and that’s worth far more than the few minutes of discomfort that you’re going to feel.”

Despite military prevention efforts, the suicide trends in most services continue to alarm top leaders in 2010. However, the Navy’s efforts appear to have been more effective. Twenty-nine Navy suicides were reported as of November, down from 46 for all of last year, according to the Navy Personnel Command.

Suicide prevention experts say it is too early to claim success or attribute the potential drop to any one program. However, the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, which emphasizes a first-aid mind-set, is making passionate supporters out of sailors wary of annual training on so many other subjects.
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Asking a tough question for suicide prevention