ORANGE : Team Effort Urged Against Teen Suicide

The mother of a 20-year-old boy who shot himself in the stomach last year wanted to understand what went wrong. A young man whose HIV-positive friend wanted help in committing suicide came to find out how to deal with him. The teacher of a popular student who killed herself wondered whether she could have prevented the tragedy.

All three were among 16 educators, parents and school district employees who attended a workshop at El Modena High School on teen suicide and depression. Most of them had known someone who had committed suicide, or tried to, or talked about it.

For the workshop leader, psychologist Randy Davis, the common bond among those present provided an important tenet of his lesson.

“Anything we do relative to teens and depression and suicide has got to be a team effort,” Davis said. “No one can carry the burden alone.” The depression and suicide workshop was one of 35 seminars that attracted hundreds of school district employees and community members to an Orange Unified School District conference about “at-risk” students, who are prone to substance abuse, gangs, truancy and other problems.

Ranked behind car accidents and homicides, suicide is one of the leading causes of death among people 15 to 24 years old in Orange County, according to the county Health Care Agency. In 1990, the latest year for which statistics are available, 45 people in that age group committed suicide in the county.

During the 80-minute workshop, Davis told participants how to recognize the symptoms of suicidal youngsters, such as sleeping and eating problems, loss of energy, falling grades, withdrawal or substance abuse.

Teen-agers most likely to attempt suicide have low self-esteem and self-control, Davis said. But there is no sure formula for spotting potential suicide.

More difficult to spot are suicidal students often described as “good kids,” Davis said. Those teens who seem to be popular, happy, model students might be very troubled inside.

Because teen-agers are more likely to confide their suicidal thoughts to a peer, students should learn how to handle such situations and acknowledge that it might be necessary to break a friend’s confidence to save a life, Davis said.

He recommended that school campuses set up crisis intervention teams to address problems of suicide and depression as they arise.