August 24, 2020
Roane State President Chris Whaley will sign a proclamation Tuesday, August 25, 2020, designating September as Suicide Prevention Awareness Month in observance of the 20th anniversary of the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network.
The event will be held at 11 a.m. in the atrium of the Coffey-McNally Building on the Oak Ridge Branch Campus. Sarah Walsh, East Tennessee regional director of the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network (TSPN), is expected to speak.
Walsh will also be available to talk with students, staff and college faculty members and distribute information about the network’s mission, said Dr. Lisa Steffensen, Roane State’s dean of students.
“I think it’s so important for people to be aware that anyone can help someone in crisis by knowing the appropriate local resources,” Steffensen said.
Steffensen and a member of Roane State’s Counseling Services Office are completing training so that they can offer what’s known as “Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention” to staff and faculty on all campuses. QPR is listed on the National Registry of Evidence-based Practices and Policies and is promoted by the TSPN. Additionally, it is appropriate for students, staff and faculty due to its non-clinical nature. The trainings will occur via Zoom during the fall semester.
As part of the effort, large decals providing information about local resources will also be affixed to high-traffic walkways on the college’s Oak Ridge, Roane County and Cumberland County campuses. The decals feature both the crisis phone number and the crisis text line.
The proclamation states that on average, 97 persons commit suicide each month in Tennessee and that suicide “is one of the most disruptive and tragic events a family and a community can experience.”
The proclamation event coincides with the Oak Ridge Campus’s “Welcome Back Week,” a longstanding tradition to greet new and returning students at the start of the fall semester.
For more information and resources, visit www.tspn.org.
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