Suicide-prevention groups intensify efforts

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July 3, 2008

By Donna Capodelupo

Rick Barry, a local funeral director and embalmer, has seen the toll that suicide can take on friends and family members who are left behind.

They become isolated by an unwillingness to talk about the manner of their loved one's death, he said, and their silence helps to perpetuate the idea that suicide is a relatively uncommon phenomenon.

Sadly, it happens more often than the community realizes, he said, and with devastating consequences.

Statistics from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health back him up.

In Haverhill, more than 8 of every 100,000 deaths is from suicide, a rate that exceeded the state average in 2006, the last year for which numbers were available. For seven of the 10 years between 1996 and 2006, the rate of suicide in Haverhill has been higher than the state average.

Barry was among representatives of public safety and social service agencies, court, health and educational systems, businesses, churches and government who attended a workshop on Friday, June 27, to launch a community-based suicide-prevention effort.

"Get involved," Barry implored the group. "We have to do this."

Deborah Helms, a program coordinator with the Samaritans, said Haverhill already has a network of people and organizations working to reduce suicides in Haverhill, led by the Northeast Coaltion for Suicide Prevention and the Haverhill Community Violence Coalition.

The effort unveiled on Friday, called Frameworks, will build on the efforts of those agencies by involving a larger circle of people and giving them tools and training needed to help those at risk of suicide and to help family, friends and the larger community heal "if the tragedy of suicide does occur," said Elaine de Mello, training and education director for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in New Hampshire, which developed the program.

Between 1996 and 2006, 53 people in Haverhill died by suicide. Of those, nearly half were between the ages of 30 and 45.

Helms said that while suicide is believed primarily to affect teenagers and the elderly, it is seen in all age groups.

The Samaritans telephone hot line, which serves people who might be depressed or contemplating suicide, is experiencing an increase in calls from men in their 30s and 40s, Helms said.

Over the next three years, the people and organizations who took part in Friday's workshop, led by the Northeast and Haverhill coalitions, will put the Frameworks guidelines into practice.

To learn more about the project, contact Helms, a co-chairwoman of the Northeast Coalition for Suicide Prevention, at 978-688-0030 or dhelms@familyserviceinc.com or Barbara Worsley, a co-chairwoman of the Northeast Coaltion, at barbara.worsley@state.ma.us.

Suicide in Haverhill

1996: 5

1997: 3

1998: 8

1999: 2

2000: 6

2001: 4

2002: 3

2003: 8

2004: 5

2005: 4

2006: 5