Speras is the Latin word for hope or to have hope. It is a appropriate name for the consulting company run by Kim Leifso and Karin Mattu from Vancouver.
Speras Consulting had come to the Boundary School District last week to present suicide and self-harm prevention workshops.
The pair said that most of the time their role is as Canadian Certified Counsellors working one-on-one with kids who are moderate to high risk for suicide.
They came to present facts, debunk myths and offer advice and hope. Their workshop was funded by District Parent Advisory Council.
On Wednesday afternoon they presented to the grade 8-12 students at BSCC and that evening to parents. A special session was presented to counselors and Child Care Workers on Thursday morning, followed by more sessions with the GFSS grade 9-12 students during the day and another for parents in the east end that evening.
The evening session at BCSS brought out five parents, two trustees and two students plus Health Promoting Schools Coordinator Karly Olsen.
The message that was repeated many times during the evening session was, “Suicide is preventable. There is hope.”
“It is an absolute myth that talking about suicide will put the idea in people’s heads,” said Leifso. “Usually if a child is thinking about suicide already and you are willing to have that conversation with them it is a relief to them.
“Kids who are thinking of suicide carry around this intense burden and they feel like they are a burden to everyone in their lives and they don’t feel that they can talk openly to anyone about this.”
Eighty per cent of people who die by suicide give some sign of their intent beforehand. “That’s the number we focus on,” said Mattu. “It is important that we teach the signs so that people notice them and pick them up with people in their lives.”
“An analogy that Kim and I use a lot is the connect-the-dot puzzles. With suicide and self-harm you are trying to gather as much information as possible. The information are the dots and the more dots you have the clearer the picture becomes for you and you want a clear picture before you ask whether someone is thinking about or considering suicide.”
Suicide and intentional self-harming, like cutting, are not the same thing, but both are signs of distress and should be taken seriously.
Any suicide attempt is a serious cry for help. People who do suicide don’t want to die - they want the pain to end.
The good news is that statistics show that most youth who thought about suicide last year reached out to someone - most often (81 per cent of the time) to a friend. They may reach out to teachers, school counselors, doctors or nurses, school staff, youth workers, religious leaders or social workers. But typically kids do not talk to their own parents. They may however open up to a friend’s parent. Workshop participants were cautioned to be prepared – and if you know you are not going to be able to be to handle this topic have someone in mind that you can bring into the conversation.
Suicide and self-harm differ. Suicide involves the intent to die while with self-harm the intent is to feel relief from intense feelings or numbness. Lethal means are used in suicide; non-lethal in self-harm. Suicide attempts bring no sense of relief, whereas self-harm brings an immediate sense of relief.
Suicide is in response to a feeling of inescapable pain - “I don’t have hope that this is ever going to get better and I don’t feel I can ever get out of this.” Suicide doesn’t have a sense of hope behind it; self-harm does.
Self-harm as a coping mechanism is an addiction. “Like any other addiction endorphins are released,” explained Mattu. “Until it is replaced with healthy coping tools and regularly practiced then they are going to go back to what works.”
Self-injury is usually characterized by cutting, but other forms of self-harm include burning, hitting, pulling own hair, punching things, interfering with healing of wounds, biting, using erasers on the skin or ingesting.
Warning signs (the small dots in the puzzle) are wearing long sleeves in warm weather or refusing to show arms or other body parts, frequent injuries with weak explanations, tools (unbent paper clips, razors, lighters, knives, shards of glass, etc.), risk taking behaviours, lack of healthy coping skills and if your child is frequently in the bathroom for a really long time.
“If you have a gut feeling that something is not right, chances are it’s not right. Listen to your gut,” said Mattu.
Data specific to the Boundary was available. According to Olsen this data came from the Adolescent Health Survey; a survey done every five years of some 130 questions given to grade 7-12 students. She said the Boundary School District participated in it last spring.
In the Boundary 25 per cent of girls, and 13 per cent of boys report self-injury.
Eleven per cent of Boundary high school students said they seriously considered killing themselves last year; the provincial average is 12 per cent.
Five per cent of Boundary high school students reported having attempted suicide last year; the provincial average is 5 per cent.
Twenty-six per cent of Boundary youth suicide attempts result in medical attention or hospitalization.
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death amoung 15-24 year olds (behind car accidents).
Suicide is preventable. If we catch the warning signs and provide help in an appropriate and timely manner suicide is preventable. We want our kids and community members and the people we love to be safe. The only way you do that is by educating the public. Suicide is still very taboo.
“In a community where there has been loss by suicide it is important that everybody is aware and they know how to respond effectively”, said Mattu. Be aware if you are starting to notice some of these signs in people in your life. “These are the dots that we are trying to connect.
“We are giving you all these skills but at the end of the day – be human,” counseled Leifso. “If you are in that human moment and the person in front of you is really just upset – just be a human. Just say, ‘Wow - I’m really sorry that just sucks.’ Just be human.”
“When you have hope that tomorrow is going to be better you can get through the night,” offered Mattu. “When you have hope in the room suicide is really, really minimized.”
