The Summit County Health Department is presenting a number of training sessions on suicide prevention the next several months. The first is in the Park City area on Tuesday.
Shelley Worley, a health promotion director with the county, said their program called is called “QPR”. Question, Persuade, Refer.
“Learn how to identify a person in need, ask the question and then be able to persuade them to be able to get the help that they need and help them identify the resources that we have available.”
Worley said the program is nationally-recognized
“It’s the only suicide prevention program recommended and identified by the CDC. It’s an opportunity for people to go through a training and learn how to identify someone who might be experiencing a crisis at that time. You learn how to identify behavior, situational and verbal cues. Be able to come alongside a person and offer them some hope to get through this process. Our goal is just to raise awareness in the community, so many people have been touched by suicide.”
She said the first session is set for August 21st at the Richins Service building, followed by a meeting September 18th at the Kamas Services Building and then October 16th at the Coalville Library.
All the sessions are at 6:00 pm.
Worley said that sometimes people are afraid to broach the topic of suicide to family or friends, but they shouldn’t be.
“If I can identify someone who might be experiencing depression, been going through a difficult time and they’re concerned about it. Often times people feel hesitant to ask, ‘have you considered suicide? Have you thought about this?’ (because they think) they’re going to put the idea in someone’s head. Research shows that is not the case. Health professional agree that is not the case. People are looking for a little piece of hope or a solution, once you ask that question it often provides them with relief. They feel like they have someone who can understand and help them get through this journey.”
Worley said they’ve presented the training to county employees, local businesses and the schools. After the presentation to Park City Municipal, they got word from four staffers who said they had been able to apply the QPR process to troubled individuals over a months’ time.
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