Latest News and Events

Inter-Agency Training Council and Front Porch Coalition Co-Sponsor Nationally Recognized Suicide Prevention Training

The Inter-Agency Training Council and the Front Porch Coalition will co-host the nationally recognized suicide prevention training developed by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) in Washington, D.C. The SPRC Training Institute has developed a new one-day workshop for mental health professionals and employee assistance professionals. The workshop focuses on competencies that are core to assessing and managing suicide risk and is a collaboration of the American Association of Suicidology and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

A number of mental health professionals across the country are trained to deliver this unique hands-on training. The Inter-Agency Training Council and the Front Porch Coalition have chosen Janet Kittams-Lalley from Sioux Falls, South Dakota as the trainer for this workshop because she brings the expertise to the community as a nationally recognized trainer and a suicide prevention expert with first-hand experience of the issues relevant to rural and urban communities in South Dakota. Ms. Kittams-Lalley assisted the Front Porch Coalition when it developed and wrote the State Strategy for Suicide Prevention when she worked for the Help!Line Center in Sioux Falls. The Help!Line Center currently works with the South Dakota Division of Mental Health to manage the Statewide Suicide Awareness Partnership Project throughout the state. Ms. Kittams-Lalley currently works for Avera McKennan’s Behavioral Health Center and is a co-director of the Statewide Suicide Awareness Partnership Project.

The workshop will be held on Friday, April 3, 2009 at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center’s Rushmore Room “G” on the second floor. The workshop will be held from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Suicide Prevention Resource Center has developed this interactive hands-on training and is the agency responsible for delivering the curriculum as it was developed, awarding continuing education credits, and ensuring that participants receive the quality training that is expected from this curriculum. Therefore, a number of important rules have been set by SPRC. The primary rule for participants to realize is that they must register ten days prior to the training and no refunds can be given after that date, which is set for March 18, 2009. The reason for this is to allow time to email to participants the pre-workshop reading materials that will prepare them for the training and the coursework that will be done. SPRC will also be sending the 110-page workbook for each participant to the Inter-Agency Training Council prior to the workshop. Therefore, no late registrations or walk-ins can be taken as participants would not be prepared ahead of time by reading the pre-workshop reading materials.

SPRC values the feedback and evaluations from this curriculum. Therefore, participants are asked to go online to the SPRC website to complete the evaluation form. After they complete the evaluation, a certificate of attendance will be issued to them. This must be done within two weeks of the workshop, as the survey is only available for two weeks from the date of this particular workshop. In order to receive their certificate of attendance to use to obtain their CEUs, participants must complete this online evaluation within two weeks of completing the training at this workshop.

For more information or to register for the training, contact Sandy Allen with the Inter-Agency Training Council at: 605-718-9241 or sallen@rushmore.com. The cost of the training is $100 and includes the 110-page manual and 6.5 clock hours of continuing education units (CEUs). This program is approved by the National Association of Social Workers for 6.5 continuing education contact hours and the National Board of Certified Counselors for 6.5 continuing education contact hours, which is equivalent to 65 clock hours. All South Dakota licensing boards will accept these CEUs and participants will need to submit them to the appropriate licensing board to receive their South Dakota CEUs. Checks should be made to the Inter-Agency Training Council and mailed to: Sandy Allen/ITC, 425 E. Philadelphia St., Rapid City, SD 57701.

Front Porch Coalition Continues to Provide Youth Suicide Prevention Training to Rapid City Schools

The Front Porch Coalition will continue its efforts to prevent youth suicides by again offering the school-based youth suicide prevention training to the schools in Rapid City who were unable to participate in October 2008. With this training, all public and private middle and high schools will receive this unique school-based youth suicide prevention training. The schools that were able to participate in October 2008 have already seen the improvements in their students’ help-seeking behaviors. Peers who were trained to become peer leaders have brought other youth who needed help to the adults who were trained to be adult advisors for this program. Peers are bringing to their schools messages of how to seek help when you need it from caring, trusted adults, whom they’ve made others aware are available to them when they need that help. Peers are doing public service announcements at their schools about this program while also making billboards at school with anti-suicide messages. Peers will also be making speeches in classes about the importance of seeking help whenever you need it and to not choose suicide as an option of dealing with their problems and the hopelessness they may be feeling. The message is clear and is one that can be relayed to the entire community: “Help is available and we are here to help you get that help.”

The developer and trainer of this youth suicide prevention program, Mr. Mark LoMurray will again be in Rapid City during the Fall of 2009 to deliver this training to the remaining schools in the community. During this time he will also begin to train local school personnel who are already trained adult advisors to become trainers who can keep this program going well into the future as adults and students in the schools change over the years. This will be vital to keeping this program effectively implemented on a long-term basis. The organization is working to continue to secure the funding needed to bring this training to the schools in the Black Hills region. Please contact the Front Porch Coalition office at 605-348-6692 if you are interested in bringing this training to your school.

Please feel free to periodically check our website for additional information about the training and any additional community awareness events, including dates and time that will be scheduled this fall as the details of the next training are developed.

Free Support Group on Recovering from Suicide Grief

Thank you to the generous donations from some local businesses, the Front Porch Coalition is now able to offer free of charge to the people and suicide survivors in the Black Hills region the option to attend a support group facilitated by a professional clinician. This support group is unique in that it will bring more than just support to those who have lost someone to suicide. It will also provide people with an opportunity to learn how to cope with their grief and learn that what they are going through and may be dealing with is normal after loosing someone close to them to suicide.

The focus of the group is to understand suicide grief, learn the normal stages of grief specific to suicide, work through the grief process, and learn how to cope, heal, and recover from a loss to suicide. The support group will be facilitated by a licensed professional who will take participants through the grief process specific to suicide and provide education and resources on dealing will grief, loss, and healing. The emphasis of the support group is on education as opposed to counseling. Interested participants will be given referrals to other counseling and support resources in the community should they need any additional resources and assistance.

Pre-registration for the group session is required. Participation in the support group is voluntary but attendance at every meeting is encouraged since the support group will be closed to those who pre-register and will run for six consecutive weeks per session. The group will meet at Lutheran Social Services at 2920 Sheridan Lake Road in Rapid City from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 pm. The next group session is scheduled to start on Thursday, May 22, 2008. Please call the Front Porch Coalition at 348-6692 to register each person attending. Additional group sessions will be held throughout the year, as the program will be an ongoing service.

The event is free of charge to those wishing to participate. Materials will be provided to each participant. Pre-registration is required since the group will be a closed group from beginning to end, so please contact the Front Porch Coalition at 605-348-6692, by email at: inquiries@frontporchcoalition.org, or by mail at: 401 3rd Street, Suite #4, Rapid City, SD 57701. Please RSVP containing your name, mailing address, email address, and phone number as contact information in the event any information needs to be sent to the participants, as well as the number of participants planning to attend with you.

Suicide Prevention Program: “Suicide Prevention Is Everybody’s Business”

Over the past few years, the local suicide rate has been steadily rising. In Pennington County, the number of suicide completions over the past five years has nearly doubled from one per month to nearly two per month. During the past two years, eleven of the suicide victims have been between the ages of 11 and 19 and six between the ages of 20 and 26. More than fifty percent of the suicide deaths in Pennington County over the past nine years have ages that range from 14 - 35 years old at the time of their death. As the local, state, and national rate of suicide completions increases, the need for effective suicide prevention programs in every community becomes essential. Even though mental health providers are trained to identify the immediate warning signs for suicide, everyone needs to know those warning signs. Many suicide victims were not receiving treatment prior to and at the time of their death. It is important that we educate people on how to identify those warning signs and teach them how to ensure that the suicidal person receives appropriate and immediate assistance in order to save their life.

One of the primary goals and most important projects that the Front Porch Coalition is working to develop and bring to community organizations and business in the Black Hills region is a suicide prevention program that everyone can use in their everyday lives. A number of presentations will be developed so that the information will be tailored to the specific community organization, gender group, age group, and other demographic backgrounds. Each presentation is intended to teach everyone how to identify suicide warning signs, determine if a person is at risk for suicide based on those warning signs, and teach that person how to refer and persuade the suicidal person to receive treatment from the appropriate mental health provider in their community. Yet the presentation will be tailored to meet the needs of the specific group targeted, i.e. school teachers and counselors, youth providers, nursing home providers, hospice providers, ministers, etc. The presentations will provide general information on suicide prevention and will be approximately one to two hours in length.

The organization continues to work on developing more in-depth training sessions for those groups who may need more detailed information and resources on various techniques on suicide prevention. The first of those training sessions is being implemented in the Rapid City Schools and is specifically address towards youth suicide prevention training in schools. Contact the Front Porch Coalition office or check the organization’s website for the latest news and updates for more information on this program.

Join in Public Awareness Anti-Stigma Campaign

The Front Porch Coalition has made it a strategic priority to implement a public awareness and anti-stigma campaign to reduce the negative stigma that still remains that prevents people from seeking professional help for mental health, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and support after loosing someone to suicide, with the goal of preventing suicide and improving the overall mental health and wellness of the community. Nationwide, approximately 90% of all suicide victims suffer from some form of mental health or substance abuse problem. Two-thirds of those did not receive any treatment at the time of their death. Of the average twenty suicides per year in Pennington County, nearly all of those victims were not receiving any mental health or substance abuse treatment in the days, weeks, or months preceding their death. Nearly all of those victims were using alcohol at the time of their death and/or were dealing with some form of mental illness or using and/or abusing alcohol or drugs. While every situation and suicide death has different circumstances, these alarming statistics have remained fairly stable over the years.

So in order to prevent suicide deaths from occurring and reducing the number of suicide attempts that our community has endured over the past few months and even years, it is our priority to implement this anti-stigma and public awareness campaign. In order to do this and implement a full-scale campaign meeting the needs and concerns of the entire community and all of its mental health and substance abuse providers, we are asking for the assistance of those providers in preparing to implement this campaign as well as bringing it to the Black Hills communities. We will also need assistance in raising the funding in order to carry out this campaign. While we will be pursuing various sources of funding, we will need the assistance of a number of community providers, organizations, and even local businesses in order to raise enough funding to implement this project. Please contact me if you are interested in and able to assist us, regardless of how you can be of assistance. Together we can work to raise awareness and reduce the incidence of suicide and get people the help that they need in order to improve and maintain their mental health and wellness.

This page is updated periodically with the latest news and events from within the organization, including the events we are hosting within the community. Check back in the future for the most recent news and upcoming events. (Updated) 4/29/09