October 23, 2024 • 10 mins
Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24. In this episode, we explore how families, schools, and communities can work together to recognize warning signs, provide support, and create safe spaces where young people feel comfortable seeking help. I speak with Jessica R. Umbrell, Psy.D., Senior Psychologist Advisor at PerformCare, a behavioral health organization and a part of the AmeriHealth Caritas Family of Companies. Learn more:
- PerformCare: https://pa.performcare.org/
- AmeriHealth Caritas: www.AmeriHealthCaritas.com
- Facebook: AmeriHealth Caritas
- LinkedIn: AmeriHealth Caritas
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Balladmorrow. Have you heard about Project twenty twenty five.
We're going to take a deep dive into a document
that could potentially shape a Trump administration if he's elected,
and we'll talk about digital equity, which means a whole
lot more than connecting to the Internet. First, today, we're
(00:21):
going to focus on the critical topic of suicide prevention,
with a special emphasis on supporting youth. Suicide is the
second leading cause of death for people ten to twenty four.
Isn't that a shocking statistic? As suicide rates among young
people continue to rise, it's more important than ever to
raise awareness and provide resources for prevention. We'll look at
(00:43):
how families, schools, and communities can work together to identify
warning signs offer support. Joining us right now as doctor
Jessica Umbrell. She is a senior psychologist advisor for Performed Care,
which is a member the Ameerror HEALTHCARETUS network handling behavioral
health and so thank you so much for joining us
here today, And I'm going to begin by asking you
(01:06):
the question, what are some of the most common warning
signs that a team may be struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Warning signs would be something that we are seeing that
is a direct indicator that somebody might be thinking at
that moment in point in time about taking their life.
Those can be for teenagers, since the focus is on adolescents, teenagers,
maybe young adults. We would see things like talking directly
(01:35):
about wanting to die, speaking a lot about death, maybe
posting things on social media that are concerning regarding death,
or things that allude to the topic of death. We
may find teens having researched taking their life online ways
that they can potentially take their life in their search
(01:58):
histories or maybe walk in and seeing those things or
on their phone search histories. Other things that aren't as
maybe in your face kind of warning signs would be
showing a drastic change in their mental health status, if
you will, or an extreme change in their mood, increased irritability,
(02:21):
frequent fluctuations between maybe a sad and depressed, hopeless mood
to highly irritable or anxious type of state of mind.
Anything that you're noticing that's an extreme change and their
typical kind of personality. Also withdrawing from any of their
social supports or connections, So we think of withdrawing from friends.
(02:45):
Not everyone has a huge group of friends, so it
would be anything that that teenager adolescent would be typically
involving themselves in for connectedness, and then we see them
either slowly or drastically with drawing. That's a warning sign.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Let's talk about some of the causes of some of
the risk factors because certainly now sure kids have exposure
to social media and we know that that can be
a tremendous influence on the well being, the mental well
being of young people. What are some of the risk
factors that they experience.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
First, let me say this adolescence in and of itself
is a risk factor for suicide because of the marked biological, psychological,
and social pressures changes that they experienced during that time.
It's a very tumultuous time, so in and of itself,
adolescence is a period of risk. When we talk about
(03:39):
risk factors for anyone for suicide, but I'll talk specifically
about examples for adolescents, we talk about them from a
biological standpoint. So there are risk factors that are genetic
in nature. So maybe they've had a parent who's died
from suicide, a parent who's had suicide attempts. They can
be psychological in nature, meaning they have a predisposition to
(04:01):
mental health disease, or they can be social in nature,
something in their social environment. I'm going to give you
examples of a few of these, and they can also
be social determination type risk factors. So we talk about
social determinants of health factors related to those that can
put them at risk. So in the social environment, Okay,
bullying comes to the top of the list. Everyone talks
(04:23):
about bullying, and it is a risk factor for suicide.
I think we hear a lot of stories about kids
who have been chronically bullied and end up taking their
life because they just can't take that anymore. But other factors.
Social isolation is one of the biggest risk factors for
adolescents if they have the predisposition for suicidality, being isolated
(04:44):
socially and not having a connected to a someone or
a something, some type of connection in their environment, Being
a victim of some type of violence, whether it's domestic violence,
or having been physically bullied as we already mentioned bullied,
being raised in violent neighborhoods and homes, having a family
around them that is experiencing a lot of either economic distress,
(05:09):
which then leads to mental health distress, just living in high,
highly stressful environments, and then you know, really having access
to anything that would be potentially life taking, most notably firearms,
because they are the number one method that folks use
(05:29):
to take their life.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Doctor Umbrella. I think that as a society we don't
often have the words to address these kinds of issues.
And so if you, in fact see somebody that you
know is at risk, or you feel in your heart
that they are at risk for suicide, what are some
of the words or what are some of the actions
(05:51):
that we can take as a family, as a community,
as the network around this person. What can we do?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So the very first thing that I would say to
anyone is to ask the question directly, if you feel
those warning signs that I just listed, if you see
an adolescent, a teen who is showing those warning signs,
you ask the question directly, are you thinking about taking
your life? Are you thinking about killing yourself? There is
(06:20):
this belief that if we talk about it, we are
putting it in someone's head, and that is not correct,
So ask the question directly. We never ever want to
leave somebody alone who might be experiencing a warning sign
or be in a mental health crisis. This is on
the personal level, the one to one level. We also
(06:40):
want to make sure that we're listening carefully to thoughts
and feelings that they might be having, so we don't
want to minimize or say, oh, you know, maybe you're
just having a bad day, or maybe it's just you know,
going to pass. We want to listen and take it seriously.
Anytime a team talks about death or thinking about suicide,
take it seriously. There are ways we can intervene by
(07:05):
doing things like reducing access to any lethal means that
they might have available in securing the environment, and we
can connect them to supports. There is a crisis line
called the nine eighty Suicide Crisis Line. You can call
that at any time and get a person on the
other end of the line who has access to a
variety of sources and crisis supports and will be able
(07:26):
to talk to you directly and get you connected to
a physical support system. Or you can text home to
the number seven four one, seven four one to get
somebody to connect you immediately to a crisis counselor in
the end, if you are sitting with somebody who is
having those warning signs and you don't know what to do.
(07:48):
You take them to the local emergency room if they're willing.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, it's so difficult to address these issues.
But I think the positive aspect of the COVID epidemic
is that we are in fact having these conversations about
mental wellness. In addition to the hotline that you mentioned
and the text service that you mentioned, certainly there are
other resources. Can you share with us some other resources
(08:14):
that we could look into.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, there's a lot that folks can do, which is
to get involved in or become aware of prevention types
of activities that are going on in the community. At
perform Care currently, we do a number of prevention types
of activities within our managed care organizations. We are developing
(08:37):
billboards to place around our service areas that have suicide
prevention and awareness messages and emergency response numbers on them.
That the numbers that I just gave you. So you're
driving along and you see a billboard and you might
be thinking about, you know, harming yourself, or you might
be thinking about somebody else in your life that you've
(08:57):
been concerned about and it gives you information right now
that you can call. So we also do media posts
on the topic of suicide through Amerahealth and perform Care.
We've developed an infograph with a lot of the information
that I've shared on a brief that goes up onto
social media posts. These are some of the typical tasks
that prevention organizations throughout at the national level. These are
(09:19):
the types of campaign efforts that many of these prevention
organizations are putting together in order to raise awareness so
that we feel more comfortable speaking about suicide. And if
you feel more comfortable speaking about it talking about it,
then you feel more comfortable acting on it when you
are either feeling it yourself or you are with somebody
(09:44):
who might be showing those warning signs.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So in addition to nine to eight AID, what's the
website for perform Care.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Performcare's website is performcare dot org.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, this is a very important conversation. As I mentioned
at the beginning, suicide is the second leading cause of
death for Peace Book ten to twenty four and that
is a shocking statistic. But there is something that we
can do as a community to support these young people.
So please definitely if you see something, Say Something. Doctor
Jessica Umbrell. She is a senior psychologist and advisor for
(10:17):
Performed Care, which is part of the America Health CARATAS
network handling behavioral health. Thank you so much for joining
us today.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Thank you, Laurene. I appreciate you having us today.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
We'll have more insight after these messages.
Good morning, Welcome to Insight, a show about empowering our community.
I'm Lorraine Balladmorrow. Have you heard about Project twenty twenty five.
We're going to take a deep dive into a document
that could potentially shape a Trump administration if he's elected,
and we'll talk about digital equity, which means a whole
lot more than connecting to the Internet. First, today, we're
(00:21):
going to focus on the critical topic of suicide prevention,
with a special emphasis on supporting youth. Suicide is the
second leading cause of death for people ten to twenty four.
Isn't that a shocking statistic? As suicide rates among young
people continue to rise, it's more important than ever to
raise awareness and provide resources for prevention. We'll look at
(00:43):
how families, schools, and communities can work together to identify
warning signs offer support. Joining us right now as doctor
Jessica Umbrell. She is a senior psychologist advisor for Performed Care,
which is a member the Ameerror HEALTHCARETUS network handling behavioral
health and so thank you so much for joining us
here today, And I'm going to begin by asking you
(01:06):
the question, what are some of the most common warning
signs that a team may be struggling with suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Warning signs would be something that we are seeing that
is a direct indicator that somebody might be thinking at
that moment in point in time about taking their life.
Those can be for teenagers, since the focus is on adolescents, teenagers,
maybe young adults. We would see things like talking directly
(01:35):
about wanting to die, speaking a lot about death, maybe
posting things on social media that are concerning regarding death,
or things that allude to the topic of death. We
may find teens having researched taking their life online ways
that they can potentially take their life in their search
(01:58):
histories or maybe walk in and seeing those things or
on their phone search histories. Other things that aren't as
maybe in your face kind of warning signs would be
showing a drastic change in their mental health status, if
you will, or an extreme change in their mood, increased irritability,
(02:21):
frequent fluctuations between maybe a sad and depressed, hopeless mood
to highly irritable or anxious type of state of mind.
Anything that you're noticing that's an extreme change and their
typical kind of personality. Also withdrawing from any of their
social supports or connections, So we think of withdrawing from friends.
(02:45):
Not everyone has a huge group of friends, so it
would be anything that that teenager adolescent would be typically
involving themselves in for connectedness, and then we see them
either slowly or drastically with drawing. That's a warning sign.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Let's talk about some of the causes of some of
the risk factors because certainly now sure kids have exposure
to social media and we know that that can be
a tremendous influence on the well being, the mental well
being of young people. What are some of the risk
factors that they experience.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
First, let me say this adolescence in and of itself
is a risk factor for suicide because of the marked biological, psychological,
and social pressures changes that they experienced during that time.
It's a very tumultuous time, so in and of itself,
adolescence is a period of risk. When we talk about
(03:39):
risk factors for anyone for suicide, but I'll talk specifically
about examples for adolescents, we talk about them from a
biological standpoint. So there are risk factors that are genetic
in nature. So maybe they've had a parent who's died
from suicide, a parent who's had suicide attempts. They can
be psychological in nature, meaning they have a predisposition to
(04:01):
mental health disease, or they can be social in nature,
something in their social environment. I'm going to give you
examples of a few of these, and they can also
be social determination type risk factors. So we talk about
social determinants of health factors related to those that can
put them at risk. So in the social environment, Okay,
bullying comes to the top of the list. Everyone talks
(04:23):
about bullying, and it is a risk factor for suicide.
I think we hear a lot of stories about kids
who have been chronically bullied and end up taking their
life because they just can't take that anymore. But other factors.
Social isolation is one of the biggest risk factors for
adolescents if they have the predisposition for suicidality, being isolated
(04:44):
socially and not having a connected to a someone or
a something, some type of connection in their environment, Being
a victim of some type of violence, whether it's domestic violence,
or having been physically bullied as we already mentioned bullied,
being raised in violent neighborhoods and homes, having a family
around them that is experiencing a lot of either economic distress,
(05:09):
which then leads to mental health distress, just living in high,
highly stressful environments, and then you know, really having access
to anything that would be potentially life taking, most notably firearms,
because they are the number one method that folks use
(05:29):
to take their life.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Doctor Umbrella. I think that as a society we don't
often have the words to address these kinds of issues.
And so if you, in fact see somebody that you
know is at risk, or you feel in your heart
that they are at risk for suicide, what are some
of the words or what are some of the actions
(05:51):
that we can take as a family, as a community,
as the network around this person. What can we do?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So the very first thing that I would say to
anyone is to ask the question directly, if you feel
those warning signs that I just listed, if you see
an adolescent, a teen who is showing those warning signs,
you ask the question directly, are you thinking about taking
your life? Are you thinking about killing yourself? There is
(06:20):
this belief that if we talk about it, we are
putting it in someone's head, and that is not correct,
So ask the question directly. We never ever want to
leave somebody alone who might be experiencing a warning sign
or be in a mental health crisis. This is on
the personal level, the one to one level. We also
(06:40):
want to make sure that we're listening carefully to thoughts
and feelings that they might be having, so we don't
want to minimize or say, oh, you know, maybe you're
just having a bad day, or maybe it's just you know,
going to pass. We want to listen and take it seriously.
Anytime a team talks about death or thinking about suicide,
take it seriously. There are ways we can intervene by
(07:05):
doing things like reducing access to any lethal means that
they might have available in securing the environment, and we
can connect them to supports. There is a crisis line
called the nine eighty Suicide Crisis Line. You can call
that at any time and get a person on the
other end of the line who has access to a
variety of sources and crisis supports and will be able
(07:26):
to talk to you directly and get you connected to
a physical support system. Or you can text home to
the number seven four one, seven four one to get
somebody to connect you immediately to a crisis counselor in
the end, if you are sitting with somebody who is
having those warning signs and you don't know what to do.
(07:48):
You take them to the local emergency room if they're willing.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, you know, it's so difficult to address these issues.
But I think the positive aspect of the COVID epidemic
is that we are in fact having these conversations about
mental wellness. In addition to the hotline that you mentioned
and the text service that you mentioned, certainly there are
other resources. Can you share with us some other resources
(08:14):
that we could look into.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well, there's a lot that folks can do, which is
to get involved in or become aware of prevention types
of activities that are going on in the community. At
perform Care currently, we do a number of prevention types
of activities within our managed care organizations. We are developing
(08:37):
billboards to place around our service areas that have suicide
prevention and awareness messages and emergency response numbers on them.
That the numbers that I just gave you. So you're
driving along and you see a billboard and you might
be thinking about, you know, harming yourself, or you might
be thinking about somebody else in your life that you've
(08:57):
been concerned about and it gives you information right now
that you can call. So we also do media posts
on the topic of suicide through Amerahealth and perform Care.
We've developed an infograph with a lot of the information
that I've shared on a brief that goes up onto
social media posts. These are some of the typical tasks
that prevention organizations throughout at the national level. These are
(09:19):
the types of campaign efforts that many of these prevention
organizations are putting together in order to raise awareness so
that we feel more comfortable speaking about suicide. And if
you feel more comfortable speaking about it talking about it,
then you feel more comfortable acting on it when you
are either feeling it yourself or you are with somebody
(09:44):
who might be showing those warning signs.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So in addition to nine to eight AID, what's the
website for perform Care.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Performcare's website is performcare dot org.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, this is a very important conversation. As I mentioned
at the beginning, suicide is the second leading cause of
death for Peace Book ten to twenty four and that
is a shocking statistic. But there is something that we
can do as a community to support these young people.
So please definitely if you see something, Say Something. Doctor
Jessica Umbrell. She is a senior psychologist and advisor for
(10:17):
Performed Care, which is part of the America Health CARATAS
network handling behavioral health. Thank you so much for joining
us today.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Thank you, Laurene. I appreciate you having us today.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
We'll have more insight after these messages.
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