Youth Suicide Risk Expected to Increase

Despite an increase in the availability of school counseling since the Northridge earthquake, counselors in the district’s suicide prevention unit expect the number of students who consider or attempt suicide to rise in the coming months.

Rosemary Rubin, a counselor with the suicide prevention unit for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said the risk of suicide increases after a disaster, especially for children and adolescents who already suffered from depression.

After the quake, the district offered sessions where teachers, counselors and administrators could talk about their experiences during the disaster and discuss ways to handle trauma or depression in students. Extra counseling is available to students with funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But Rubin said she expects the number of students experiencing suicidal thoughts and even those attempting suicide to grow, based on the experience of other school districts after disasters.

School psychologists in Dade County, Fla., for example, reported that more than a dozen elementary school children tried to kill themselves in a two-month period several months after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, compared to an average of one or two a year.

Martin Cohen, school psychologist for Granada Hills High School, said he has counseled at least two students who were at risk for suicide since the quake, but cautioned that a connection between the disaster and the students’ symptoms is difficult to make.

But Gerald Deskin, director of The Learning Center clinic in Encino, said that he has counseled more than 1,000 children and adults since the earthquake, and the temblor exacerbated feelings of depression for many people.