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Sunday, November 01, 2009
Ruidoso Area Tries To Cope With Suicides
By Rene Romo
Journal Southern Bureau
RUIDOSO — The reasons behind a recent spate of suicides by five young people, including three high school girls, may never be known, but school officials, mental health professionals and community leaders are working hard to head off any more tragedies.
On Oct. 23, an Apache woman led a blessing ceremony at Ruidoso High School, carrying a smoking bunch of sage as she walked the hallways where two of the victims attended classes.
On Wednesday, Ruidoso High teachers and staff attended workshops to help adults recognize warning signs in suffering teens and respond appropriately. The QPR training — "question, persuade and respond" — was led by a representative of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition and mental health advocates with the state Department of Health.
Starting at 3 p.m. today, members of the Lincoln County Christian community will lead a prayer vigil, during which participants will walk, silently praying, through Ruidoso High and then a middle school across the road.
"It's just been a desperate time here, and it's just impacted the whole community," said Ruidoso minister Tim Gilliland.
"The overall issue is not just for the healing of the terrible scars that are caused by (the deaths), but to pray for future blessings and encouragement," Gilliland said. "It's not just a looking back, not for mourning. We are definitely asking for healing, but we are also looking forward."
Four of the five deaths by suicide involved Mescalero Apaches.
It started in August when a 25-year-old man took his own life. A 19-year-old man took his life on Sept. 7, and later that week a 16-year-old girl, a student at Mescalero High School, killed herself, prompting the tribe to set up a crisis center at the school for grieving students. The next suicide, involving a 14-year-old girl who attended Ruidoso High, occurred Oct. 4, followed 10 days later by the death of a 16-year-old Hispanic girl, also a Ruidoso High student.
The following week, a 16-year-old Apache girl attending Tularosa High attempted suicide.
Tularosa Municipal Schools Superintendent Brenda Vigil said the incident marked the first attempted suicide by a student that she was aware of in more than a decade. Now Tularosa schools are looking to arrange training for parents through Indian Health Services at Mescalero.
Ruidoso and Mescalero school officials said they do not believe the suicides are tied to one another, and they dispelled rumors of a pact among the girls.
Bea Etta Harris, superintendent of Ruidoso schools, said no students died by suicide last year. At the training Wednesday in Ruidoso, teachers were told to walk the fine line between supporting people's grieving and doing anything to glamorize the deaths.
One positive development in an otherwise difficult period is that school officials and parents are trying to address the situation head-on, Harris said. "The tendency (is) to hope it's just going to go away — we are past that point," Harris said.
Now, in addition to providing training for school staff, Harris said the district is planning to train middle and high school students in a Natural Helpers program, which prepares children to assist their peers, since most young people turn first to their friends in times of crisis.
On Nov. 19, the First Baptist Church will host an event, called "No Fear Factor," in which school counselors and mental health advocates from the state and the University of New Mexico will offer sessions on depression, suicide prevention and substance abuse.
"We continue to say this is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and a lot of adolescents don't have the capacity to understand that 'this too shall pass,' " said Amanda Lopez, a Las Cruces-based school mental health advocate with the Department of Health.
Faculty from the UNM Department of Psychiatry have been working with officials from Mescalero's Indian Health Services.
The Mescalero Apache administration referred questions to the head of the reservation's Indian Health Services, who could not be reached for comment.
Harris said communication between children and their parents, as well as educators, has increased in recent weeks, and that is a positive step.
Jeremiah Simmons, coordinator of a youth suicide prevention program in the Mescalero Apache Schools, echoed the thought.
"Youth suicide is a preventable public health problem that is rooted in social justice," Simmons said. "Suicide prevention is a community responsibility, and we need to break the code of silence and stigma that surrounds suicide."
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