Merrick Jewish Centre to host suicide-prevention workshop

We’ll return to the mini-series about the ups and downs of the teacher job market next week. But first, a preview of an upcoming program that is of interest to all this week: “Suicide is preventable.”

Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people.Therefore, the leading cause of death among children and teens is preventable. That’s a fact—and yet we’re losing an increasing number of young people.

Note: I said teens and children; the age at which kids are attempting suicide is dropping. This topic is so important that I recently devoted 16 installments of my WCBS Newsradio 880 radio feature “Eye on Education” to it.

We’ll address suicide at a special community adult education program on Sunday, May 15, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Merrick Jewish Centre, 225 Fox Blvd., south of Merrick Road.

The program is free of charge and open to people of all faiths from all communities. I urge you to attend and bring friends and family members. Bagels and coffee will be served.

The two-hour workshop on Sunday will be interactive. Each participant will receive materials to be used during the session. There will be several role-playing activities and two short films, one particularly poignant in which a mother describes her life as a suicide survivor.

We will begin by taking a brief true-false “test” to separate myth from fact with regard to suicidology. (Yes, it’s become a science.) Some of the answers will surprise you.

Then we will turn to the 3 “S’s” –  signs, symptoms, and signals to watch for— not just for your own children, but also for all children you come into contact with. I will stress that a “community of caring” must be created if we are to stem this epidemic.

Next we’ll look at a list of dos and don’ts for dealing with youth in distress.  It’s hoped that participants will follow these guidelines in the future.

A role-playing exercise will follow during which seven scenarios will be presented and participants will be given the chance to indicate what they would do in each case.