January 26, 2024 • 39 mins
Amid the heavy burden of today's societal pressures – from the lingering effects of the pandemic to the omnipresent weight of social media – our youth are wading through unprecedented mental health challenges. In today's podcast, we sit with Dr. Kurt Michael (Senior Clinical Director) from The Jed Foundation (JED), diving into the urgent topic of youth firearm suicidality. As a former academic dedicated to establishing mental health clinics in rural schools, and a gun owner himself, Dr. Michael brings a wealth of experience to the table, sharing why gun violence prevention is not just a policy issue, but a personal one. Together, we explore the heightened suicide risks for young people, particularly in communities where firearms are more accessible, and Dr. Michael helps us see the resilience and hope in these young fighters, and how simple measures like responsible gun storage can be a lifeline.
Further reading:
It's Okay to Say Suicide (JED)
How to Cope With Safety Threats in Your Community or the World (JED)
What’s the best way to talk about gun violence with kids? (JED)
Asking Saves Kids (Brady)
Preventing Youth Suicide (NASP)
For more information on Brady, follow us on social media @Bradybuzz or visit our website at bradyunited.org.
Full transcripts and bibliographies of this episode are available at bradyunited.org/podcast.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.
In a crisis? Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a Crisis Counselor 24/7.
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells for their long-standing legal support
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinion shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red Bull and
(00:44):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And today, Kelly and I are sitting down with Dr Kurt
Michael of the Jed Foundation Totalk about something that is
really difficult but reallyimportant, which is the reality
of kids and firearm suicidality.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, and, as you know, 2024 progresses.
This is something that we thinkisn't going to be important to
every single person this year.
Even if you're like I don'tknow anyone, just keep listening
.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Exactly, Even though Kelly and I maybe don't count as
youths anymore which was reallyhard to hear.
It's really important because wedo have young people in our
lives that we love, right?
So this is so, so vital for usto keep learning and keep
working with.
Thanks so much for joining us,kurt.
I'm wondering could you tellour listeners just a little bit
(01:37):
about yourself?
You know I'm really curiousabout what your work is at Jed,
but you know, I guess, leadingup to that, how you came to work
in gun violence prevention andmental health work, how you came
to be at Jed.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So my title at Jed is Senior Clinical Director and I
would say, prior to that,probably relevant to know, I'm a
licensed clinical psychologistand I spent probably close to 24
years as a professor ofpsychology and I would say for
most of that time I worked inschools outside the university
(02:13):
community, mostly in ruralAppalachia, and my work there
was to develop embedded schoolmental health clinics, again
mostly in rural schools, wherein some of these communities, if
they're going to get mentalhealth services, if they didn't
get it from us, they generallywent without.
These are areas of reducedaccess, all kinds of barriers,
(02:36):
you know lack of insurance, lackof qualified providers,
transportation barriers,economic stressors, just to name
a few.
And again, because the suiciderates in some of these rural
communities were actually muchhigher than average, we were
really, out of necessity, neededto develop programming that's
(02:56):
very consistent with the JedFoundation's comprehensive
approach.
So, as much as I had been doingthat work for, you know, 24
years, I think once I learnedmore about the Jed Foundation,
probably midway through mycareer at App State, it seemed
like a really perfect alignmentwith, you know, what I had been
(03:19):
doing, with what I was hoping toachieve by coming over to the
Jed Foundation.
So it was a bit of a risk forme to leave a tenured,
distinguished faculty line andthen come over to a nonprofit,
but I felt like it was a greatdecision.
You know as much as it's kindof a weird time I did this
during the pandemic.
You know my wife wasn'tparticularly thrilled with the
(03:43):
prospect, but for me to makethat move was a bit of a risk.
But again, I think I remainvery satisfied with my decision
to move over again, chieflybecause the work is so similar,
right.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, and then you have that rural experience as
well.
I mean, I think on this podcastjust a result of Kelly and I
having grown up in cities andwork in cities we tend to focus
on, maybe, urban areas, but thisis also affecting kids in rural
areas too.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Almost all of that time I'd been working in these
rural communities.
You know I'd worked most of thetime with families that you
know they almost regularly had alot of firearms and so to make
those situations safer we had toinnovate, oftentimes on the fly
, to make our interventionsresponsive to that known risk to
(04:32):
those young people.
So we had been doing this workfor a long time.
So, again, because Jed reallyprioritizes what we broadly
refer to as mean safety orpromoting mean safety, again it
was a good fit for me.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit too
about Jed.
You know what is thisfoundation.
That's so great that you walkedaway from a 10 year position.
Which folks outside of academiayou don't do that.
That's like saying no to a.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I want to call it a lottery ticket because it's not
as fun to get tenure as adistrict with lottery, but still
.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, no, that was a hard earned thing.
You know that.
10 years not an easy thing atall.
But no, I would say that whatbecame obvious to me, I guess,
is I got to know the Seytow,particularly.
Jed is named Jed Seytow.
He actually died by suicide in1998.
So really the, the genesis, theorigins of the Jed Foundation
(05:30):
are in honor of Donna and PhilSeytow's son, jed, who again
died in 98.
And so the foundation wasinitiated in the year 2000.
So they've been around for along time and so I guess, to put
a more personal spin on it,because I had an opportunity to
know Phil mostly on the phone,and also the CEO, john McPhee,
(05:53):
became kind of a no brainer forme because I really related to
the Seytow's lived experience asto losing a child to suicide
and so that really pulled at mepretty strongly.
And so I guess it's really amore of a personal choice to
come over and join the JedFoundation, because the mission
is clear.
It's based on the pain ofsuicide, loss and the, I guess,
(06:19):
the inspiration of working witha nonprofit or a family
specifically that knows thatpain in a way that few people
can understand or experience,and so it was a pretty personal
thing and because of its history, of being so long-standing and
so committed to the issue, Ifelt like it would be a mistake
(06:40):
not to join the Jed Foundation.
So when, you know, jed's parentsvisited the university where he
was attending at the time ofdeath, they had talked about
okay, so what would?
What would happen?
You know what would a blueprintlook like to serve young people
as a mental health safety net?
And so I think they went to theliterature you know and found
(07:02):
some models that were properlyevaluated, found to be effective
, and they decided that a modelthat had been tested in the Air
Force was probably a good start,and so they basically adapted
that particular approach thatcontains seven core elements as
(07:23):
a way to develop sustainablesystems, policies and procedures
to reduce suicide and toprotect the emotional well-being
of not only college students.
But eventually, as you might beaware, we began to move into
the high school space andeventually all the way down to
(07:44):
kindergarten levels, so districtlevel programming, also around
the time of the pandemic.
So we've been doing that workfor the past four or five years
and so we try to develop systemsto address the issue of
protecting emotional health andpreventing suicide from
kindergarten up through the ageof 30 approximately.
It's not to say we're not opento working in populations that
(08:07):
are broader than that, but Ithink that's our main focus.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I mean thanks for kind of sharing so much of the
background too, because I wantto elevate the family for what
they did for their son in termsof his legacy and making such a
huge change for such a longperiod of time.
And you talked about themission of Jed is to not just be
about suicide prevention butalso emotional well-being, and I
know I personally hear a lot,especially after the pandemic
(08:33):
you hear a lot of chatter aroundthe kind of youth's emotional
well-being.
But I'm wondering what are somesort of concrete examples that
would help us understand whatthe state of youth mental health
is at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, there's so many things happening and I think to
say it's a crisis would be anunderstatement.
So I think there's a lot ofstressors that are impacting
young people, including economicstress, housing insecurity,
what's going to happen in theirfutures, sort of this 24 seven
glut, information that's comingat full speed at them through
(09:07):
social media, various platforms,about the state of the world,
racial injustice, climate change, what their future may or may
not look like, completeuncertainty about the things
that previous generations didn'treally have to think as much
about.
So I've got grown kids, but Icertainly feel like we've put
(09:29):
young people in a really awkwardposition where we've made a lot
of mistakes as oldergenerations and they're kind of
left holding the bag.
So I feel guilty about that,honestly, just as a parent
honestly.
And so I just think that there'sso many things happening,
whether that's increases insuicide death rates or higher
(09:53):
rates of depression, anxiety,etc.
Trauma war, it's just reallyfull speed 24 seven.
So I would say, you know, takeyour pick.
I mean there's so many thingshappening.
So, again, I often marvel atthe same time at the resilience
of young people, so I'mstrangely confident that they
(10:16):
will find ways to solve thesevery complex problems.
But I wish that wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I think for a lot of us there, to your point, are
things happening that we don'teven know about, or platforms
that we don't even know aboutand kind of slightly, you know,
drilling down on something youmentioned, which is the
different impacts on mentalhealth, we know that that can
take a lot of forms it could belack of sleep, it could be a lot
of things.
But in terms of suicide,something that we've seen at
(10:43):
Brady is that even people thatare really young people between
10 years old and 19 years oldare vulnerable to firearm
suicide, which is something thatis always associated with it.
And I'm wondering if you talkabout the risk of firearm
suicide among young people.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, sure, well, I mean it is, as you probably know
, it is the most common methodof suicide death overall.
And so that's obviously, Ithink, I think, point number one
that we know that if you lookat different methods of suicide
or methods of attempt, that isthe most common method of
(11:22):
suicide death across the board.
So obviously, for that to betrue, I think, argues that we
need to be a lot more responsiveto that particular risk factor,
whether that's in, you know,regardless of where you are, if
you're in a rural community,actually the risk is higher, for
example, if you live in a highgun owning state.
That's also another risk factor.
(11:44):
So there's all these differentsort of contributing factors
that make it less likely or morelikely, depending on where you
happen to live in the world.
If you live in a community witha lot of unlocked firearms I'll
just give you one example,maybe two that come to mind If
you live in the state of Wyoming, the average household has 11
(12:05):
firearms.
If you're in Montana, thatnumber is about seven or eight.
So I hope that gives you somecontext about what I'm
describing.
So and this is another thingthat's true If you are a
adolescent who lives in a ruralcommunity.
Not only do we think there'sevidence that there's a higher
likelihood there'll be a gunaccessible, but the perception
(12:29):
of easy access tends to be abouttwice as high among rural teens
.
There was a study that waspublished out of Colorado where
you looked at the youth from themore rural communities in
Colorado and their perception ofeasy access was around 36% of
those youth.
If you compared those numbersto the youth in Colorado who did
(12:54):
not live in the ruralcommunities, it was around 18%.
So it's still high, but again,double the rate if you live in a
rural community, if that makessense.
So again, that's perception.
And then there's actual accesswhich we by looking at, let's
say, handgun deaths or firearmdeaths I should say so in rural
(13:14):
Appalachia if you look at thetotal number of firearm deaths,
whether that's homicide orsuicide in some of these rural
communities, 80% of thosefirearm deaths were deemed to be
suicides.
So again, it really matterskind of where you live and
what's around you and what's inyour environment.
(13:35):
And so, like I said before, whenwe were doing this work in
rural Appalachia, a regularfeature of the families we
served was when you ask thequestion can you tell me how
many firearms you have in yourhome, or how can we come up with
a plan to store those firearmsmore securely and safely?
(13:57):
Typically, we're talking aboutmultiple firearms and I would
add a little bit additionallayer to that.
So not only are we talkingabout hunting rifles, for
example, which is pretty normal,pretty common, we're also
talking about self-defensefirearms.
They feel like they need aself-defense firearm and so
(14:17):
typically we have to developpolicies and procedures,
clinical interventions, thataccount for both types of
firearms.
Maybe a third type would belike a family heirloom, or
firearms that are used forcompetitions, for example, or
shooting sports competitions.
So we typically would ask aboutfirearms for three different
(14:39):
purposes.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just fascinating because so often the perception
is that cities are awash andguns that's where you kind of
have to be concerned.
And then you have shown that inthe data, at least in terms of
perception of how easy it is toaccess the gun, there's actually
a rule of vibe.
I think it goes to your pointabout how powerful it is to have
data and evidence.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, totally.
And so, again, our broadmessaging is always about
responsible gun story, and so weknow that, on average, the
latest stat that I can recallfrom looking at broad surveys of
percentage of gun owners whosafely store all their firearms
that's in the low to mid 40%range.
(15:22):
Grafasi et al was a study thatwas published in 2000 from Johns
Hopkins that shows that interms of average rates of
storage, that's about what we'relooking at.
So obviously we need to getbetter.
That's a fairly low number.
I mean, that's a lot ofunlocked firearms out there,
right.
So you know, our main objectiveis going back to Jed and some
(15:45):
of that comprehensive approachis how can we just basically, in
a very non-judgmental way,promote responsible gun storage
across the board?
We have to do better.
Now, I know that.
You know I don't know if it'sobvious to you I'm a gun owner,
hunter myself, and I was taughtsafe gun storage when I was yay,
(16:08):
high, and so one of the firstthings you learn in hunter
safety, I took my son to thesame class when he was I think
he was probably he was seven oreight when I took him to a
hunter safety class.
The first lesson they teach youis muzzle discipline right.
That means you always knowwhere your firearm is pointed at
(16:29):
all times and you never pointedat someone.
I mean plain and simple.
And so I don't know if you know.
I don't think that's necessarilygone away, I think it often
doesn't get talked about enough,but I think you know there's.
It's pretty straightforward toinclude a module and some of
(16:50):
these hunter safety classes, gunsafety classes, on the
importance of doing this for notonly suicide prevention,
obviously, but just generallynot having access to firearms
for anybody who might use itwithout authorization or
inappropriately or in an unsafeway.
I wish we would do a better job, sort of like.
(17:12):
When my kids were young, theexpectation was you made sure
that all the chemicals that youhad in the house were under the
sink and there was a way to.
It wasn't like you.
It was impossible to get underthe sink, but you know those
little clips you put on thecabinets that would prevent you
know-.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, your child safety locks, your general-.
Yeah, yeah, okay, there you go,yeah thanks for reminding me.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, exactly I mean.
So why that somehow is not partof our general kind of
universal precautions.
That really defies explanation.
But I think it's kind of thesame thing, or like why we put a
barrier around our swimmingpools when we build our swimming
pools, why not require the samekinds of things, or at least
(18:00):
encourage that with every gunpurchase, or why that's somehow
missing.
If it is, I think is part ofthe problem that somehow that
has not been normalized.
I mean otherwise, if it werenormalized the study from
Grafasi and others would tell adifferent story and
unfortunately it's lower than itneeds to be, so-.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
It's that combination of it being a politicized issue
and still a taboo issue.
I think Americans still have ahard time talking about
suicidality and then especiallysuicidality among children and
teens.
I think that's why I think it'sso great that that's Jed's
focus, because I think folkshave a very hard time.
I think Suicide is still verymuch thought of kind of a thing
affecting older white men and noone else.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Right, yeah, it's, the rates are concerning, and
it's true, I mean still thehighest risk group overall are
older white men with firearms.
I mean clearly, but all theother groups racial, ethnic
groups are closing the gap andthat's not good.
In other words, it's becomingmore acceptable to have firearms
(19:07):
and that idea that having afirearm makes you feel safer,
that's not good either.
Especially if you're not storingthose firearms.
It should go hand in hand.
If you have a firearm, thatshould be fully respected is
something that can causegreatest bodily injury or death,
and I don't think that escapesthe mind of most families,
(19:32):
especially when you remind them.
And so back to this kind ofdiscussion of families.
I gotta say it's never feltpoliticized in the work that
I've been doing all these years.
It feels like it's terrifyingfor families with a child who's
at risk for suicide when youtell them that firearm is posing
(19:53):
a significant risk to yourchild.
I don't think there's ever beena time that I can remember
clearly where families object tothat, and I mean, what's their
object to when you're reallyemphasizing look, the whole
point of this is to prevent yourchild's death.
And when you put it thatbluntly again, I've had maybe
one parent, in all the thousandsof times I've done this, get up
(20:17):
and storm out of the office,like that's literally happened
once.
Now what was, I think, even inthat particular case, what was
good is that the dad who walkedout, the mom didn't, and so the
dad was yelling at me and sayingI was a proxy for the
government and all these things.
(20:37):
And the mom said, when the dadleft who incidentally lost his
older son to suicide only about19 months before that, and we
were simply talking about waysto be protective of his younger
son who was at risk for suicidethat the mom said okay, what do
you want me to do?
And so we said, okay, here'swhat we'd recommend.
And so we recommended a seriesof steps to safely store I think
(21:00):
in that particular case, Ithink they had at least five or
six long guns, couple ofshotguns, three hunting rifles,
several handguns, a couple ofrevolvers, a couple of some
automatic handguns, and we setabout a plan to safely store
everyone, including what shedescribed to be the gun that
they kept for self-protection.
(21:22):
We helped her find anaffordable separate lock box.
They had a gun safe.
Actually, they didn't use it asoften as they should.
It was one of those thingswhere they had a gun safe in the
basement and they you know,just as a gun owner, I wouldn't
do it this way.
but they left the gun safe dooropen with the key, you know, in
the tumbler, and I said, well,how about we close it, lock it,
(21:45):
put the key somewhere, and forthe self-defense firearm, let's
get you a separate device.
I think we were able to getthat family a small biometric
safe for the self-protectionfirearm.
So it was a multi-part planthat took, you know, not just
one conversation.
We had, I would say, a seriesof conversations and now that I
(22:09):
think of it, I remember the dadeventually, and reluctantly,
rejoined that conversation, butyou know, when he was convinced,
I guess, that we weren't, youknow, trying to confiscate his
firearms, which was not our goal.
You know, Our goal was to comeup with a voluntary solution to
(22:31):
store the firearms in a way thatwas protective right.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I think that that reformatting of this is no
different than say, if we weregetting like a medicine to your
child, right, that this is ushaving a mental health response
to a mental health crisis.
This is all that this is.
I mean, it's a big all, butthat this isn't a judgment on
your parenting.
This isn't a judgment on yourpolitics.
This isn't a judgment on yourlife.
(22:54):
This is just how do we keepyour child safe, which, if
you're here talking to us, thatmeans that you care, right?
So I think that that's a greatway to present it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, we wanna keep them in the room.
I know that I have witnessedproviders talk rather
insensitively about gun accessand I've seen providers make, I
think, predictable mistakes andthe way they go about the
intervention.
And I would say that it's a bigpart of Jed's approach to help
(23:29):
training people how to havethese conversations in a way
that's again not adversarial,not confrontational and not
about confidence.
Now are there situations whereI've got a situation that
requires additional steps.
Let's say you have a child whoyou deem to be basically subject
(23:53):
to medical neglect, for example, or they, let's say the
caregivers, will take theirchild to their mental health
appointments.
If they do that repeatedly andthey're at risk for suicide, for
example, that might meet thequalifications for medical
neglect, but we wouldn't startthere.
In other words, we would alwaysstart with voluntary solutions
(24:18):
to get buy-in, because for someof these interventions to be
effectively sustained, we wannastart there.
And so, yeah, are there timeswhere we have to take extra
measures?
If there's a domestic violencesituation, certainly, but I
would argue that those are muchless common than the
conversations I'm mentioningbefore.
(24:39):
Right, and I think, as part ofthe informed consent process,
when I work with all my clientsand patients.
They know in advance that ifthere's something that is deemed
to be a legitimate threat toself or others, they already
know in advance that I'm gonnatake special care to address
(25:00):
those issues as they come up.
So when it has to come up, I'llusually remind them.
Remember, when we did theinformed consent process and you
were told and you agreed to thefact that I was going to take
this seriously in the fact thatif the health and wellbeing,
safety, security of self orothers are at risk, I'm gonna
(25:22):
take extra measures.
I'm gonna break confidentialityand see to it that we can get a
better sense of how to beprotective, and that might
include stepping outside thisconfidential relationship right?
So I just wanna point out thatall of those elements or tools I
(25:43):
would say that we can make cometo life when we need them.
We use those too, but I thinkthat the chief model from a
preventative standpoint isvoluntary and trying to bind to
a person's willingness topromote safety and to not be
adversarial, if that makes anysense.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
No, it makes perfect sense, and I think it just then,
too, highlights like what I'mthinking of when I hear you
speak on.
This is why it's so importantfor there to be different actors
in the gun violence preventioncommunity or all acting together
, and so ultimately it's just.
I think it just goes to showthat you need multiple people in
multiple spaces workingsimultaneously, because I think
the message maybe comes muchbetter from you in this instance
(26:26):
.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, no, I think that's that actually aligns well
with even some of the datapoints from credible messengers
and the Kravasti study that gunowners often like to talk to
other gun owners or active dutymilitary folks if you're a
veteran or law enforcement orfolks that have some working
(26:48):
knowledge.
Now I will say this that in allthe work that I've been doing
over the years, like trainingmental health providers, you
don't have to be a gun owner tobe conversant and effective in
talking about guns.
You just have to know a fewthings, and so part of that
training process can include youknow, safety training on
firearms.
(27:08):
That way at least you know whatthe components of a firearm are
.
If you talk about some creativeways to reduce access, if that
includes dismantling the firearmeven temporarily to make it
inoperable to be protective, soyou can kind of create a little
bit of a safe distancing fromthat lethal method while the
person is trying to recover fromsome type of mental health
(27:31):
crisis.
So I also want to point outthat some of the more successful
partnerships that I've workedon over the years I'll give you
Utah as a case example thatthere was a very diverse group
of coalition members in Utahthat's been around for a while,
that helps support the passingof House Bill 41 instead of Utah
(27:56):
.
You might be familiar, but thatbasically, is something that
Jett has been involved in, wherewe.
So the law is basically thisthat if a child in a school, a
public school, if it's madeaware that a child is at risk
for suicide or even beensubjected to bullying or some
(28:18):
type of situation involvingsuspected abuse, then that
family is then given informationthat's credible on reducing
access to lethal means, not justfirearms but dangerous
medications as just two examples, and Jett helped produce some
of the materials on how to dosensible things to store
(28:39):
medication safely at home.
Same for firearms.
And so I think it's not reallycoercive, it's not required as
dissemination of information,and the way you go about it I
think needs to be specific andnuanced.
But it's an example of whencoalitions work together in
(29:02):
arguably a pretty red stage likethe state of Utah, where these
things are more of a communitycollective, if you will.
That involves all kinds of folksepidemiologists and the
gun-owning community andshooting sports organizations
that all come together to comeup with sensible ways that are
(29:23):
acceptable to many on how can Istore my firearms more
responsibly right.
So I suggest you take a look atthat bill if you have a minute,
and I do think it has to bedelivered in a particular way.
I think you have to be aware ofthe messenger.
I don't think everybody canjust sort of hand them out and
(29:44):
say here you go.
I think it does need to be kindof, you know, walk people
through it a little bit, and Ithink it's a totally sensible
approach that doesn't have to bepoliticized at all.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You mentioned earlier the ways that young people are
sort of inundated through justsort of a relentless barrage of
information about really hardthings, one of them being gun
violence, and today we'rerecording and there was a mass
shooting.
We see so many mass shootingsreported in the media, I imagine
on the local news.
Young people are also exposedto gun violence that doesn't
(30:18):
make national headlines and soif you're a listener and you
have a relationship with a youngperson might be your child,
your niece, mentee, whatever arethere any sorts of practical
things that adults should keepin mind when talking to a young
person about gun violence?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, no, it's an important area and I think Jed's
done a really great job ofactually coming up with direct
recommendations how to go aheadand talk to young people about
these issues, to talk about themin ways that are honest and
supportive and action oriented.
(30:59):
I've helped contribute to someof the writings of these things
and I think they're reallypractical and sensible.
But, yeah, I think there's agood way to do it and there's
probably not so great way to doit, and so we've tried to
provide some pretty tangibleguidance.
But, yeah, I think there is agood way to do it, and I think
one of the things we don't wantto have happen is for young
(31:22):
people to feel like it's a goodidea to sort of squash your
feelings about it.
Find really sensible ways toemote and get support and talk
about it.
I think we have all kinds ofcampaigns that support the
promotion of help seeking.
Seize the awkward campaign isone that comes immediately to
(31:43):
mind.
Another one that we like tofocus on is it's OK to say
suicide, for example.
So these are campaigns that arebroad and, I think, very
supportive and known to beprotective, given all the
uncertainties in our world, andso we want to be out front.
I think we do a really good jobin the media space and so, if I
(32:08):
can say, one of the positiveaspects of that social media
part is, I think the JetFoundation.
One of the things that I thinkthey do probably better than a
lot of other things is show upin the media space about what to
do in the face of all thesedifferent threats to emotional
and mental health.
So I think we're probably oneof the better resources out
(32:30):
there.
If I can say so in this space.
I know I'm kind of biased thatway, but no, I'm often blown
away by just how great theinformation is and the vetting
that goes into it.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think a lot of us are sort of grappling with it
ourselves and sometimes that canbe a source of the difficulty
is trying to feel like you haveto have all the answers.
So I love the idea of justembracing the awkward and the
difficulty head on.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, I think there's kind of you know no easy way to
have a hard conversation.
We do want to emphasize theimportance that you know, most
young people probably don't viewgoing to professionals as a
first choice, and so theimportance of reaching out just
to your colleagues, friends andpeers and family as a first step
(33:19):
in some cases is what's needed.
I'll just remind you of afinding and a study that we knew
from back in the 60s and early70s.
So there is this study thatreinforces the value of just
simple caring context.
So this particular study isdone for survivors of serious
(33:40):
suicide attempts, and they werehospitalized, and so they
randomized the intervention tofolks to receive a postcard
expressing just basic supportfor that individual sometime
after discharge, and a group offolks that didn't receive this
particular postcard.
And, by the way, theintervention itself is just
(34:01):
simply a handwritten postcard inthe mail where it says you know
, hey, kurt, it's been, you know, a few months since you left
the hospital.
We're just checking on you tosee how you're doing.
If you want to call us, here'smy number.
You know sincerely, megan.
And that's literally the extentof it.
(34:23):
And then they followed thoseindividuals for a period of like
five to six years and theylooked at suicide death rates in
those two groups, that is, whatpercent of those patients who
were discharged died in a fiveto 10 year period after
discharge, versus those that didnot, the folks that received
(34:45):
that caring contact or thatpostcard.
The death rate was low in bothgroups, I'm happy to say, but it
was half the rate in the groupthat received the postcard
versus the ones that did not.
So what we've done in all theyears since is, in terms of
standard practices of managingsuicide risk over time, we do
(35:11):
the simple things well right.
So if that means that simplyreceiving a phone call, a text
you know somebody's reaching outsaying how you doing, how are
you feeling, what's going on, itdoesn't have to be technical,
it doesn't have to becomplicated, it just has to be,
you know, authentic and caring.
(35:32):
If that makes sense and if thatsimple act can reduce suicide
by half in this particular studyand it's been replicated by the
way, I think our campaignsaround Seize the Awkward it's
okay to say suicide are kind of.
You know, I think thefoundation of that is based on
(35:54):
some of these studies I'mreferencing.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
No, it absolutely does and I think again, it just
highlights the like.
As you said, crediblemessengers, and sometimes peer
to peer, is all the crediblemessenger that you need, or
someone that you know isearnestly interested in you on a
personal level.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Totally, and you know , it really defies some people's
fears that if I talk to someoneabout my feelings, of my
suicidal thoughts, that it'sgoing to end me up in the
hospital.
And that's just not.
That's not actually whathappens Usually.
What happens is people feelbetter, they feel a sense of
(36:32):
relief that you've named it, andif they are legitimately
concerned about suicide, then wecan give them the help that
they need right, rather thanjust stay quiet and suffer in
silence, right, right.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
But if we've got any young people who are listening
to this, who are concerned forthemselves or others or their
parents, you know where canfolks find these resources,
where can, where can folks findout?
You know more about Jed, moreabout your work beyond.
You know the links I'm going toput in the description of this
episode.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah, I mean the Jed website is is you know a site to
behold and I would say that's agreat source of information
overall.
I would also say that gettinghelp does not have to be
complicated and it often isn't.
And I think you know what mostpeople experience when they talk
honestly about what's going onwith them.
(37:23):
They mostly experience a senseof relief and a feeling that wow
, I'm.
You know it's so impactful whenyou know we respect people's
lived experience.
I guess that's what I would saymost is we're all in this and
let's just support each otherand reach out to each other and
(37:43):
focus more on what makes us alittle different.
And so that's what I would say.
You know, let's focus on oursimilarities.
Yeah, we've got differences, Imean, that's obviously true, but
let's join hands up aboutthings that we jointly struggle
with and support each other, andagain, it doesn't have to be
(38:04):
expensive or complicated.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I'll say here, here to that it's so true, and I
think that's why what you'redoing is so, so vital.
So please, everyone, check outthe links in the description of
this episode.
Go see Jed, see the resourcesthat we have in Family Fire and
just you know, keep, keep trying.
Hey want to share with thepodcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at Red, blue and
(38:27):
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480-744-3452 with your thoughts,
questions, concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's lifesavingwork in Congress, the courts and
communities across the countryis made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us atBradyUnitedorg or on social at
BradyBuzz.
Be brave and remember.
(39:01):
Take action, not sides.
Thank you.
This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you
that the views, thoughts andopinion shared on this podcast
belong solely to our guests andhosts and not necessarily Brady
or Brady's affiliates.
Please note this podcastcontains discussions of violence
that some people may finddisturbing.
It's okay, we find itdisturbing too.
Hey, everybody, welcome back toanother episode of Red Bull and
(00:44):
Brady.
I'm one of your hosts, jj.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And I'm Kelly, your other host.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And today, Kelly and I are sitting down with Dr Kurt
Michael of the Jed Foundation Totalk about something that is
really difficult but reallyimportant, which is the reality
of kids and firearm suicidality.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, and, as you know, 2024 progresses.
This is something that we thinkisn't going to be important to
every single person this year.
Even if you're like I don'tknow anyone, just keep listening
.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Exactly, Even though Kelly and I maybe don't count as
youths anymore which was reallyhard to hear.
It's really important because wedo have young people in our
lives that we love, right?
So this is so, so vital for usto keep learning and keep
working with.
Thanks so much for joining us,kurt.
I'm wondering could you tellour listeners just a little bit
(01:37):
about yourself?
You know I'm really curiousabout what your work is at Jed,
but you know, I guess, leadingup to that, how you came to work
in gun violence prevention andmental health work, how you came
to be at Jed.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So my title at Jed is Senior Clinical Director and I
would say, prior to that,probably relevant to know, I'm a
licensed clinical psychologistand I spent probably close to 24
years as a professor ofpsychology and I would say for
most of that time I worked inschools outside the university
(02:13):
community, mostly in ruralAppalachia, and my work there
was to develop embedded schoolmental health clinics, again
mostly in rural schools, wherein some of these communities, if
they're going to get mentalhealth services, if they didn't
get it from us, they generallywent without.
These are areas of reducedaccess, all kinds of barriers,
(02:36):
you know lack of insurance, lackof qualified providers,
transportation barriers,economic stressors, just to name
a few.
And again, because the suiciderates in some of these rural
communities were actually muchhigher than average, we were
really, out of necessity, neededto develop programming that's
(02:56):
very consistent with the JedFoundation's comprehensive
approach.
So, as much as I had been doingthat work for, you know, 24
years, I think once I learnedmore about the Jed Foundation,
probably midway through mycareer at App State, it seemed
like a really perfect alignmentwith, you know, what I had been
(03:19):
doing, with what I was hoping toachieve by coming over to the
Jed Foundation.
So it was a bit of a risk forme to leave a tenured,
distinguished faculty line andthen come over to a nonprofit,
but I felt like it was a greatdecision.
You know as much as it's kindof a weird time I did this
during the pandemic.
You know my wife wasn'tparticularly thrilled with the
(03:43):
prospect, but for me to makethat move was a bit of a risk.
But again, I think I remainvery satisfied with my decision
to move over again, chieflybecause the work is so similar,
right.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, and then you have that rural experience as
well.
I mean, I think on this podcastjust a result of Kelly and I
having grown up in cities andwork in cities we tend to focus
on, maybe, urban areas, but thisis also affecting kids in rural
areas too.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
Almost all of that time I'd been working in these
rural communities.
You know I'd worked most of thetime with families that you
know they almost regularly had alot of firearms and so to make
those situations safer we had toinnovate, oftentimes on the fly
, to make our interventionsresponsive to that known risk to
(04:32):
those young people.
So we had been doing this workfor a long time.
So, again, because Jed reallyprioritizes what we broadly
refer to as mean safety orpromoting mean safety, again it
was a good fit for me.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I wonder if you could tell us a little bit too
about Jed.
You know what is thisfoundation.
That's so great that you walkedaway from a 10 year position.
Which folks outside of academiayou don't do that.
That's like saying no to a.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
I want to call it a lottery ticket because it's not
as fun to get tenure as adistrict with lottery, but still
.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Yeah, no, that was a hard earned thing.
You know that.
10 years not an easy thing atall.
But no, I would say that whatbecame obvious to me, I guess,
is I got to know the Seytow,particularly.
Jed is named Jed Seytow.
He actually died by suicide in1998.
So really the, the genesis, theorigins of the Jed Foundation
(05:30):
are in honor of Donna and PhilSeytow's son, jed, who again
died in 98.
And so the foundation wasinitiated in the year 2000.
So they've been around for along time and so I guess, to put
a more personal spin on it,because I had an opportunity to
know Phil mostly on the phone,and also the CEO, john McPhee,
(05:53):
became kind of a no brainer forme because I really related to
the Seytow's lived experience asto losing a child to suicide
and so that really pulled at mepretty strongly.
And so I guess it's really amore of a personal choice to
come over and join the JedFoundation, because the mission
is clear.
It's based on the pain ofsuicide, loss and the, I guess,
(06:19):
the inspiration of working witha nonprofit or a family
specifically that knows thatpain in a way that few people
can understand or experience,and so it was a pretty personal
thing and because of its history, of being so long-standing and
so committed to the issue, Ifelt like it would be a mistake
(06:40):
not to join the Jed Foundation.
So when, you know, jed's parentsvisited the university where he
was attending at the time ofdeath, they had talked about
okay, so what would?
What would happen?
You know what would a blueprintlook like to serve young people
as a mental health safety net?
And so I think they went to theliterature you know and found
(07:02):
some models that were properlyevaluated, found to be effective
, and they decided that a modelthat had been tested in the Air
Force was probably a good start,and so they basically adapted
that particular approach thatcontains seven core elements as
(07:23):
a way to develop sustainablesystems, policies and procedures
to reduce suicide and toprotect the emotional well-being
of not only college students.
But eventually, as you might beaware, we began to move into
the high school space andeventually all the way down to
(07:44):
kindergarten levels, so districtlevel programming, also around
the time of the pandemic.
So we've been doing that workfor the past four or five years
and so we try to develop systemsto address the issue of
protecting emotional health andpreventing suicide from
kindergarten up through the ageof 30 approximately.
It's not to say we're not opento working in populations that
(08:07):
are broader than that, but Ithink that's our main focus.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I mean thanks for kind of sharing so much of the
background too, because I wantto elevate the family for what
they did for their son in termsof his legacy and making such a
huge change for such a longperiod of time.
And you talked about themission of Jed is to not just be
about suicide prevention butalso emotional well-being, and I
know I personally hear a lot,especially after the pandemic
(08:33):
you hear a lot of chatter aroundthe kind of youth's emotional
well-being.
But I'm wondering what are somesort of concrete examples that
would help us understand whatthe state of youth mental health
is at the moment?
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah, there's so many things happening and I think to
say it's a crisis would be anunderstatement.
So I think there's a lot ofstressors that are impacting
young people, including economicstress, housing insecurity,
what's going to happen in theirfutures, sort of this 24 seven
glut, information that's comingat full speed at them through
(09:07):
social media, various platforms,about the state of the world,
racial injustice, climate change, what their future may or may
not look like, completeuncertainty about the things
that previous generations didn'treally have to think as much
about.
So I've got grown kids, but Icertainly feel like we've put
(09:29):
young people in a really awkwardposition where we've made a lot
of mistakes as oldergenerations and they're kind of
left holding the bag.
So I feel guilty about that,honestly, just as a parent
honestly.
And so I just think that there'sso many things happening,
whether that's increases insuicide death rates or higher
(09:53):
rates of depression, anxiety,etc.
Trauma war, it's just reallyfull speed 24 seven.
So I would say, you know, takeyour pick.
I mean there's so many thingshappening.
So, again, I often marvel atthe same time at the resilience
of young people, so I'mstrangely confident that they
(10:16):
will find ways to solve thesevery complex problems.
But I wish that wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I think for a lot of us there, to your point, are
things happening that we don'teven know about, or platforms
that we don't even know aboutand kind of slightly, you know,
drilling down on something youmentioned, which is the
different impacts on mentalhealth, we know that that can
take a lot of forms it could belack of sleep, it could be a lot
of things.
But in terms of suicide,something that we've seen at
(10:43):
Brady is that even people thatare really young people between
10 years old and 19 years oldare vulnerable to firearm
suicide, which is something thatis always associated with it.
And I'm wondering if you talkabout the risk of firearm
suicide among young people.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, sure, well, I mean it is, as you probably know
, it is the most common methodof suicide death overall.
And so that's obviously, Ithink, I think, point number one
that we know that if you lookat different methods of suicide
or methods of attempt, that isthe most common method of
(11:22):
suicide death across the board.
So obviously, for that to betrue, I think, argues that we
need to be a lot more responsiveto that particular risk factor,
whether that's in, you know,regardless of where you are, if
you're in a rural community,actually the risk is higher, for
example, if you live in a highgun owning state.
That's also another risk factor.
(11:44):
So there's all these differentsort of contributing factors
that make it less likely or morelikely, depending on where you
happen to live in the world.
If you live in a community witha lot of unlocked firearms I'll
just give you one example,maybe two that come to mind If
you live in the state of Wyoming, the average household has 11
(12:05):
firearms.
If you're in Montana, thatnumber is about seven or eight.
So I hope that gives you somecontext about what I'm
describing.
So and this is another thingthat's true If you are a
adolescent who lives in a ruralcommunity.
Not only do we think there'sevidence that there's a higher
likelihood there'll be a gunaccessible, but the perception
(12:29):
of easy access tends to be abouttwice as high among rural teens
.
There was a study that waspublished out of Colorado where
you looked at the youth from themore rural communities in
Colorado and their perception ofeasy access was around 36% of
those youth.
If you compared those numbersto the youth in Colorado who did
(12:54):
not live in the ruralcommunities, it was around 18%.
So it's still high, but again,double the rate if you live in a
rural community, if that makessense.
So again, that's perception.
And then there's actual accesswhich we by looking at, let's
say, handgun deaths or firearmdeaths I should say so in rural
(13:14):
Appalachia if you look at thetotal number of firearm deaths,
whether that's homicide orsuicide in some of these rural
communities, 80% of thosefirearm deaths were deemed to be
suicides.
So again, it really matterskind of where you live and
what's around you and what's inyour environment.
(13:35):
And so, like I said before, whenwe were doing this work in
rural Appalachia, a regularfeature of the families we
served was when you ask thequestion can you tell me how
many firearms you have in yourhome, or how can we come up with
a plan to store those firearmsmore securely and safely?
(13:57):
Typically, we're talking aboutmultiple firearms and I would
add a little bit additionallayer to that.
So not only are we talkingabout hunting rifles, for
example, which is pretty normal,pretty common, we're also
talking about self-defensefirearms.
They feel like they need aself-defense firearm and so
(14:17):
typically we have to developpolicies and procedures,
clinical interventions, thataccount for both types of
firearms.
Maybe a third type would belike a family heirloom, or
firearms that are used forcompetitions, for example, or
shooting sports competitions.
So we typically would ask aboutfirearms for three different
(14:39):
purposes.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
It's just fascinating because so often the perception
is that cities are awash andguns that's where you kind of
have to be concerned.
And then you have shown that inthe data, at least in terms of
perception of how easy it is toaccess the gun, there's actually
a rule of vibe.
I think it goes to your pointabout how powerful it is to have
data and evidence.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, totally.
And so, again, our broadmessaging is always about
responsible gun story, and so weknow that, on average, the
latest stat that I can recallfrom looking at broad surveys of
percentage of gun owners whosafely store all their firearms
that's in the low to mid 40%range.
(15:22):
Grafasi et al was a study thatwas published in 2000 from Johns
Hopkins that shows that interms of average rates of
storage, that's about what we'relooking at.
So obviously we need to getbetter.
That's a fairly low number.
I mean, that's a lot ofunlocked firearms out there,
right.
So you know, our main objectiveis going back to Jed and some
(15:45):
of that comprehensive approachis how can we just basically, in
a very non-judgmental way,promote responsible gun storage
across the board?
We have to do better.
Now, I know that.
You know I don't know if it'sobvious to you I'm a gun owner,
hunter myself, and I was taughtsafe gun storage when I was yay,
(16:08):
high, and so one of the firstthings you learn in hunter
safety, I took my son to thesame class when he was I think
he was probably he was seven oreight when I took him to a
hunter safety class.
The first lesson they teach youis muzzle discipline right.
That means you always knowwhere your firearm is pointed at
(16:29):
all times and you never pointedat someone.
I mean plain and simple.
And so I don't know if you know.
I don't think that's necessarilygone away, I think it often
doesn't get talked about enough,but I think you know there's.
It's pretty straightforward toinclude a module and some of
(16:50):
these hunter safety classes, gunsafety classes, on the
importance of doing this for notonly suicide prevention,
obviously, but just generallynot having access to firearms
for anybody who might use itwithout authorization or
inappropriately or in an unsafeway.
I wish we would do a better job, sort of like.
(17:12):
When my kids were young, theexpectation was you made sure
that all the chemicals that youhad in the house were under the
sink and there was a way to.
It wasn't like you.
It was impossible to get underthe sink, but you know those
little clips you put on thecabinets that would prevent you
know-.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, your child safety locks, your general-.
Yeah, yeah, okay, there you go,yeah thanks for reminding me.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, exactly I mean.
So why that somehow is not partof our general kind of
universal precautions.
That really defies explanation.
But I think it's kind of thesame thing, or like why we put a
barrier around our swimmingpools when we build our swimming
pools, why not require the samekinds of things, or at least
(18:00):
encourage that with every gunpurchase, or why that's somehow
missing.
If it is, I think is part ofthe problem that somehow that
has not been normalized.
I mean otherwise, if it werenormalized the study from
Grafasi and others would tell adifferent story and
unfortunately it's lower than itneeds to be, so-.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
It's that combination of it being a politicized issue
and still a taboo issue.
I think Americans still have ahard time talking about
suicidality and then especiallysuicidality among children and
teens.
I think that's why I think it'sso great that that's Jed's
focus, because I think folkshave a very hard time.
I think Suicide is still verymuch thought of kind of a thing
affecting older white men and noone else.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Right, yeah, it's, the rates are concerning, and
it's true, I mean still thehighest risk group overall are
older white men with firearms.
I mean clearly, but all theother groups racial, ethnic
groups are closing the gap andthat's not good.
In other words, it's becomingmore acceptable to have firearms
(19:07):
and that idea that having afirearm makes you feel safer,
that's not good either.
Especially if you're not storingthose firearms.
It should go hand in hand.
If you have a firearm, thatshould be fully respected is
something that can causegreatest bodily injury or death,
and I don't think that escapesthe mind of most families,
(19:32):
especially when you remind them.
And so back to this kind ofdiscussion of families.
I gotta say it's never feltpoliticized in the work that
I've been doing all these years.
It feels like it's terrifyingfor families with a child who's
at risk for suicide when youtell them that firearm is posing
(19:53):
a significant risk to yourchild.
I don't think there's ever beena time that I can remember
clearly where families object tothat, and I mean, what's their
object to when you're reallyemphasizing look, the whole
point of this is to prevent yourchild's death.
And when you put it thatbluntly again, I've had maybe
one parent, in all the thousandsof times I've done this, get up
(20:17):
and storm out of the office,like that's literally happened
once.
Now what was, I think, even inthat particular case, what was
good is that the dad who walkedout, the mom didn't, and so the
dad was yelling at me and sayingI was a proxy for the
government and all these things.
(20:37):
And the mom said, when the dadleft who incidentally lost his
older son to suicide only about19 months before that, and we
were simply talking about waysto be protective of his younger
son who was at risk for suicidethat the mom said okay, what do
you want me to do?
And so we said, okay, here'swhat we'd recommend.
And so we recommended a seriesof steps to safely store I think
(21:00):
in that particular case, Ithink they had at least five or
six long guns, couple ofshotguns, three hunting rifles,
several handguns, a couple ofrevolvers, a couple of some
automatic handguns, and we setabout a plan to safely store
everyone, including what shedescribed to be the gun that
they kept for self-protection.
(21:22):
We helped her find anaffordable separate lock box.
They had a gun safe.
Actually, they didn't use it asoften as they should.
It was one of those thingswhere they had a gun safe in the
basement and they you know,just as a gun owner, I wouldn't
do it this way.
but they left the gun safe dooropen with the key, you know, in
the tumbler, and I said, well,how about we close it, lock it,
(21:45):
put the key somewhere, and forthe self-defense firearm, let's
get you a separate device.
I think we were able to getthat family a small biometric
safe for the self-protectionfirearm.
So it was a multi-part planthat took, you know, not just
one conversation.
We had, I would say, a seriesof conversations and now that I
(22:09):
think of it, I remember the dadeventually, and reluctantly,
rejoined that conversation, butyou know, when he was convinced,
I guess, that we weren't, youknow, trying to confiscate his
firearms, which was not our goal.
You know, Our goal was to comeup with a voluntary solution to
(22:31):
store the firearms in a way thatwas protective right.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I think that that reformatting of this is no
different than say, if we weregetting like a medicine to your
child, right, that this is ushaving a mental health response
to a mental health crisis.
This is all that this is.
I mean, it's a big all, butthat this isn't a judgment on
your parenting.
This isn't a judgment on yourpolitics.
This isn't a judgment on yourlife.
(22:54):
This is just how do we keepyour child safe, which, if
you're here talking to us, thatmeans that you care, right?
So I think that that's a greatway to present it.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, we wanna keep them in the room.
I know that I have witnessedproviders talk rather
insensitively about gun accessand I've seen providers make, I
think, predictable mistakes andthe way they go about the
intervention.
And I would say that it's a bigpart of Jed's approach to help
(23:29):
training people how to havethese conversations in a way
that's again not adversarial,not confrontational and not
about confidence.
Now are there situations whereI've got a situation that
requires additional steps.
Let's say you have a child whoyou deem to be basically subject
(23:53):
to medical neglect, for example, or they, let's say the
caregivers, will take theirchild to their mental health
appointments.
If they do that repeatedly andthey're at risk for suicide, for
example, that might meet thequalifications for medical
neglect, but we wouldn't startthere.
In other words, we would alwaysstart with voluntary solutions
(24:18):
to get buy-in, because for someof these interventions to be
effectively sustained, we wannastart there.
And so, yeah, are there timeswhere we have to take extra
measures?
If there's a domestic violencesituation, certainly, but I
would argue that those are muchless common than the
conversations I'm mentioningbefore.
(24:39):
Right, and I think, as part ofthe informed consent process,
when I work with all my clientsand patients.
They know in advance that ifthere's something that is deemed
to be a legitimate threat toself or others, they already
know in advance that I'm gonnatake special care to address
(25:00):
those issues as they come up.
So when it has to come up, I'llusually remind them.
Remember, when we did theinformed consent process and you
were told and you agreed to thefact that I was going to take
this seriously in the fact thatif the health and wellbeing,
safety, security of self orothers are at risk, I'm gonna
(25:22):
take extra measures.
I'm gonna break confidentialityand see to it that we can get a
better sense of how to beprotective, and that might
include stepping outside thisconfidential relationship right?
So I just wanna point out thatall of those elements or tools I
(25:43):
would say that we can make cometo life when we need them.
We use those too, but I thinkthat the chief model from a
preventative standpoint isvoluntary and trying to bind to
a person's willingness topromote safety and to not be
adversarial, if that makes anysense.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
No, it makes perfect sense, and I think it just then,
too, highlights like what I'mthinking of when I hear you
speak on.
This is why it's so importantfor there to be different actors
in the gun violence preventioncommunity or all acting together
, and so ultimately it's just.
I think it just goes to showthat you need multiple people in
multiple spaces workingsimultaneously, because I think
the message maybe comes muchbetter from you in this instance
(26:26):
.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, no, I think that's that actually aligns well
with even some of the datapoints from credible messengers
and the Kravasti study that gunowners often like to talk to
other gun owners or active dutymilitary folks if you're a
veteran or law enforcement orfolks that have some working
(26:48):
knowledge.
Now I will say this that in allthe work that I've been doing
over the years, like trainingmental health providers, you
don't have to be a gun owner tobe conversant and effective in
talking about guns.
You just have to know a fewthings, and so part of that
training process can include youknow, safety training on
firearms.
(27:08):
That way at least you know whatthe components of a firearm are
.
If you talk about some creativeways to reduce access, if that
includes dismantling the firearmeven temporarily to make it
inoperable to be protective, soyou can kind of create a little
bit of a safe distancing fromthat lethal method while the
person is trying to recover fromsome type of mental health
(27:31):
crisis.
So I also want to point outthat some of the more successful
partnerships that I've workedon over the years I'll give you
Utah as a case example thatthere was a very diverse group
of coalition members in Utahthat's been around for a while,
that helps support the passingof House Bill 41 instead of Utah
(27:56):
.
You might be familiar, but thatbasically, is something that
Jett has been involved in, wherewe.
So the law is basically thisthat if a child in a school, a
public school, if it's madeaware that a child is at risk
for suicide or even beensubjected to bullying or some
(28:18):
type of situation involvingsuspected abuse, then that
family is then given informationthat's credible on reducing
access to lethal means, not justfirearms but dangerous
medications as just two examples, and Jett helped produce some
of the materials on how to dosensible things to store
(28:39):
medication safely at home.
Same for firearms.
And so I think it's not reallycoercive, it's not required as
dissemination of information,and the way you go about it I
think needs to be specific andnuanced.
But it's an example of whencoalitions work together in
(29:02):
arguably a pretty red stage likethe state of Utah, where these
things are more of a communitycollective, if you will.
That involves all kinds of folksepidemiologists and the
gun-owning community andshooting sports organizations
that all come together to comeup with sensible ways that are
(29:23):
acceptable to many on how can Istore my firearms more
responsibly right.
So I suggest you take a look atthat bill if you have a minute,
and I do think it has to bedelivered in a particular way.
I think you have to be aware ofthe messenger.
I don't think everybody canjust sort of hand them out and
(29:44):
say here you go.
I think it does need to be kindof, you know, walk people
through it a little bit, and Ithink it's a totally sensible
approach that doesn't have to bepoliticized at all.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
You mentioned earlier the ways that young people are
sort of inundated through justsort of a relentless barrage of
information about really hardthings, one of them being gun
violence, and today we'rerecording and there was a mass
shooting.
We see so many mass shootingsreported in the media, I imagine
on the local news.
Young people are also exposedto gun violence that doesn't
(30:18):
make national headlines and soif you're a listener and you
have a relationship with a youngperson might be your child,
your niece, mentee, whatever arethere any sorts of practical
things that adults should keepin mind when talking to a young
person about gun violence?
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, no, it's an important area and I think Jed's
done a really great job ofactually coming up with direct
recommendations how to go aheadand talk to young people about
these issues, to talk about themin ways that are honest and
supportive and action oriented.
(30:59):
I've helped contribute to someof the writings of these things
and I think they're reallypractical and sensible.
But, yeah, I think there's agood way to do it and there's
probably not so great way to doit, and so we've tried to
provide some pretty tangibleguidance.
But, yeah, I think there is agood way to do it, and I think
one of the things we don't wantto have happen is for young
(31:22):
people to feel like it's a goodidea to sort of squash your
feelings about it.
Find really sensible ways toemote and get support and talk
about it.
I think we have all kinds ofcampaigns that support the
promotion of help seeking.
Seize the awkward campaign isone that comes immediately to
(31:43):
mind.
Another one that we like tofocus on is it's OK to say
suicide, for example.
So these are campaigns that arebroad and, I think, very
supportive and known to beprotective, given all the
uncertainties in our world, andso we want to be out front.
I think we do a really good jobin the media space and so, if I
(32:08):
can say, one of the positiveaspects of that social media
part is, I think the JetFoundation.
One of the things that I thinkthey do probably better than a
lot of other things is show upin the media space about what to
do in the face of all thesedifferent threats to emotional
and mental health.
So I think we're probably oneof the better resources out
(32:30):
there.
If I can say so in this space.
I know I'm kind of biased thatway, but no, I'm often blown
away by just how great theinformation is and the vetting
that goes into it.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think a lot of us are sort of grappling with it
ourselves and sometimes that canbe a source of the difficulty
is trying to feel like you haveto have all the answers.
So I love the idea of justembracing the awkward and the
difficulty head on.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Yeah, I think there's kind of you know no easy way to
have a hard conversation.
We do want to emphasize theimportance that you know, most
young people probably don't viewgoing to professionals as a
first choice, and so theimportance of reaching out just
to your colleagues, friends andpeers and family as a first step
(33:19):
in some cases is what's needed.
I'll just remind you of afinding and a study that we knew
from back in the 60s and early70s.
So there is this study thatreinforces the value of just
simple caring context.
So this particular study isdone for survivors of serious
(33:40):
suicide attempts, and they werehospitalized, and so they
randomized the intervention tofolks to receive a postcard
expressing just basic supportfor that individual sometime
after discharge, and a group offolks that didn't receive this
particular postcard.
And, by the way, theintervention itself is just
(34:01):
simply a handwritten postcard inthe mail where it says you know
, hey, kurt, it's been, you know, a few months since you left
the hospital.
We're just checking on you tosee how you're doing.
If you want to call us, here'smy number.
You know sincerely, megan.
And that's literally the extentof it.
(34:23):
And then they followed thoseindividuals for a period of like
five to six years and theylooked at suicide death rates in
those two groups, that is, whatpercent of those patients who
were discharged died in a fiveto 10 year period after
discharge, versus those that didnot, the folks that received
(34:45):
that caring contact or thatpostcard.
The death rate was low in bothgroups, I'm happy to say, but it
was half the rate in the groupthat received the postcard
versus the ones that did not.
So what we've done in all theyears since is, in terms of
standard practices of managingsuicide risk over time, we do
(35:11):
the simple things well right.
So if that means that simplyreceiving a phone call, a text
you know somebody's reaching outsaying how you doing, how are
you feeling, what's going on, itdoesn't have to be technical,
it doesn't have to becomplicated, it just has to be,
you know, authentic and caring.
(35:32):
If that makes sense and if thatsimple act can reduce suicide
by half in this particular studyand it's been replicated by the
way, I think our campaignsaround Seize the Awkward it's
okay to say suicide are kind of.
You know, I think thefoundation of that is based on
(35:54):
some of these studies I'mreferencing.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
No, it absolutely does and I think again, it just
highlights the like.
As you said, crediblemessengers, and sometimes peer
to peer, is all the crediblemessenger that you need, or
someone that you know isearnestly interested in you on a
personal level.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Totally, and you know , it really defies some people's
fears that if I talk to someoneabout my feelings, of my
suicidal thoughts, that it'sgoing to end me up in the
hospital.
And that's just not.
That's not actually whathappens Usually.
What happens is people feelbetter, they feel a sense of
(36:32):
relief that you've named it, andif they are legitimately
concerned about suicide, then wecan give them the help that
they need right, rather thanjust stay quiet and suffer in
silence, right, right.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
But if we've got any young people who are listening
to this, who are concerned forthemselves or others or their
parents, you know where canfolks find these resources,
where can, where can folks findout?
You know more about Jed, moreabout your work beyond.
You know the links I'm going toput in the description of this
episode.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yeah, I mean the Jed website is is you know a site to
behold and I would say that's agreat source of information
overall.
I would also say that gettinghelp does not have to be
complicated and it often isn't.
And I think you know what mostpeople experience when they talk
honestly about what's going onwith them.
(37:23):
They mostly experience a senseof relief and a feeling that wow
, I'm.
You know it's so impactful whenyou know we respect people's
lived experience.
I guess that's what I would saymost is we're all in this and
let's just support each otherand reach out to each other and
(37:43):
focus more on what makes us alittle different.
And so that's what I would say.
You know, let's focus on oursimilarities.
Yeah, we've got differences, Imean, that's obviously true, but
let's join hands up aboutthings that we jointly struggle
with and support each other, andagain, it doesn't have to be
(38:04):
expensive or complicated.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I'll say here, here to that it's so true, and I
think that's why what you'redoing is so, so vital.
So please, everyone, check outthe links in the description of
this episode.
Go see Jed, see the resourcesthat we have in Family Fire and
just you know, keep, keep trying.
Hey want to share with thepodcast.
Listeners can now get in touchwith us here at Red, blue and
(38:27):
Brady via phone or text message.
Simply call or text us at480-744-3452 with your thoughts,
questions, concerns ideas, catpictures, whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Thanks for listening.
As always, brady's lifesavingwork in Congress, the courts and
communities across the countryis made possible thanks to you.
For more information on Bradyor how to get involved in the
fight against gun violence,please like and subscribe to the
podcast.
Get in touch with us atBradyUnitedorg or on social at
BradyBuzz.
Be brave and remember.
(39:01):
Take action, not sides.
Thank you.
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