Help Outreach Taos shores up suicide prevention, response network
Training session scheduled for Feb. 3
After a year in which Taos County saw 16 individuals lose their lives due to suicide – including two children and 14 adults – many continue to wrestle with challenging questions.
Question range from how treatment and prevention efforts can be enhanced, and perhaps more basically, how a community with limited and often siloed services can best utilize what resources it does have to get help to those who need it most.
Help Outreach Taos (H.O.T.), one of a few grassroots organizations that sprang up in the midst of the tragedies that occurred over the past year, doesn't necessarily claim to have an answer, but instead sees itself as a kind of focal point for other resources to rally, network and collaborate on answering these questions together.
In just eight months, the group has grown its network from 34 concerned community members who attended the inaugural meeting last summer, to more than 120 to date.
Organizations joining H.O.T.'s outreach program for suicide prevention include Golden Willow Retreat Center, Holy Cross Hospital, Nonviolence Works, Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, Vista Grande Community Center, Taos Academy Charter School and others.
H.O.T. is also reaching beyond Taos County's borders to tap into other resources.
On Feb. 3, H.O.T., in collaboration with The Sky Center/New Mexico Suicide Intervention Project, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that specializes in suicide prevention services for youth and families, will host a special training session at St. James Episcopal Church parish hall from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The public is invited to attend. A $10-donation working lunch will be served during the session.
Organizers said attendees can expect an event that will "focus on the development of the H.O.T. Postvention response team, charged with leading a school through the days and weeks following a tragic incident."
The goal for organizers is that at the end of the workshop, participants will have an "enhanced understanding of suicide risk factors and warning signs, understand the importance of directly asking the suicide question, and discover resources for developing [an] action team ready to respond in the event of a suicide."
Risa Lehrer and Jill Cline have been keeping the momentum going for the organization since its grassroots inception eight months ago — holding several meetings throughout the past year.
"I believe this training is important for a few reasons," Cline said via email. "We have over 40 people registered from several schools, multiple agencies, town and county government, private practitioners, clergy, community members and youth. A training like this, which cuts across such a swath of our community, shows that we are ready to roll up our sleeves and get to work on learning how to work together to reduce the number of suicides our community has seen," she wrote.
To Cline and those she works with, a caring community response to suicide says, "we are ready to admit we have some work to do, to acknowledge how hard the losses have been, and that we all want to see and do better."
For more information, including a list of resources for concerned family, friends or those in distress, visit helpoutreachtaos.com or call (575) 305-4681. St. James Episcopal Church is located at 208 Camino de Santiago.
