Asian American Suicide Program Summary

The girl that is walking down the hall past you, the one you said “reeked”? She has been going to school with you since the first grade, and she’s someone who has never done anything but be nice to you, while all you do is degrade her. What you don’t know, is that her mind is eating away at itself because she is suffering from depression and anxiety. She does not need your words to make her feel any worse; she is already at her breaking point. Suicidal tendencies are so common that about one in five high school students actively considers suicide. Suicide is often at times the result of misery that is commonly correlated with to an emotional, or mental illness in a person. It is thought that there is an understanding as to why some decide take their own lives away, but there is no definite explanation. Theories about mental illnesses range from field to field as to why they exist. One thing that we do know to be truthful about suicidal tendencies are the contributing factors to the idea of suicide. With that being said, Maine West and Maine South have a program that is designed to help students understand this their mental state, and to help them if they are indeed weighing the idea of suicide. If Maine East understood the positive effect that Elyssa 's Mission has at Maine West, and Maine South, then the school may consider adopting the program into their own school.

In the United States, suicide is the third leading cause of death for 10 to 14-year-olds (CDC, 2015) and for 15 to 19-year-olds (Friedman, 2008). In 2013, 17.0% of students grades 9 to 12 in the United States seriously thought about committing suicide, 13.6% made a suicide plan, 8.0% attempted suicide, and 2.7% attempted suicide in which required medical attention (CDC, 2015). These alarming statistics show that there is something wrong with the way mental illness is handled in today’s society. Also, approximately 21% of all teenagers have a treatable mental illness (Friedman, 2008), although 60% do not receive the help that they need (Horowitz, Ballard, & Pao, 2009).

This evaluation critique is focused on the article: “An Outcome Evaluation of the SOS Suicide Prevention Program,” by Robert H. Aseltine Jr, and Robert DeMartino. Based on their evaluation, the authors (2004) conclude that the SOS program was successful as “significantly lower rates of suicide attempts and greater knowledge and more adaptive attitudes about depression and suicide were observed among students in the intervention group” (p. 446).

Furthermore HB1379-S (2017) “It creates the suicide prevention in higher education grant program to provide funding for postsecondary institutions to develop basic infrastructure and strategic plans to support behavioral health promotion and suicide prevention” (p. 1).

There is a dramatic difference between the suicide rates of Caucasians and Non- Caucasian individuals. There are multiple reasons as to why that could be. One of the possible reasons for that stems from how our very society has been formed. When looking at the history, specifically here in the United States, we find that many Non-Caucasian groups of individuals have suffered at the hands of Caucasians in some way shape or form. Through that suffering, there was something that developed within those groups of people, resilience, strength, flexibility, and toughness. Non-Caucasian groups of people, for the most part, are use to the struggle that comes with being a minority so when all these hardships are happening, they do what their

The next educational effort would be the students at all schools with the focus on “health risks and nutrition and knowing what suicide looks like” in your friends or family. During education, the health maintenance and grief resource center would be initiated with location information given to all clinics, dentists, mental health counselors, schools, local hospitals, and churches. This approach to community assessment allows the PHN the understanding of historical trauma, sociocultural, and economic contexts and meaning to create partnerships with individuals, families, groups and communities promoting improved overall health and mental health (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016). The focus of this program would center around Lake County Montana with adolescent and younger children at the forefront. Outreach, follow-up, and counseling is an impediment to improvement and stabilization for the mental health individual, which could be a risk factor for suicide and other health-related concerns. To assist with this goal, a grant will be required to cover financial needs. For example, The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Research Grants awards monies from 30,000 to 1.5 million for suicide prevention, in 2015 they awarded 17 grantees for studies and programs to prevent suicide (afsp.org). These dollars will assist

Another prominent grant was the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. This grant centers around the goal of reducing suicides and suicidal tendencies through increasing training and resources for states, tribes and

According to research, California State Fullerton professor Eliza Noh states that Asian-American women of the age 15 to 24 have the highest rates of suicide than any other racial, ethnic, or gender group. The “model minority” pressure—“socially produced pressure internalized by families of some Asian-American children to be high achievers at school and professionally”—plays a large factor to the issue, especially since girls, who are more affected by it than boys, are expected to become the “perfect mother, daughter, wife and get only A’s in school and choose the right type of job,” (Cruz 1). Noh adds on, saying that Asian-American women have a tendency “to ignore or deny stress, depression and other mental health problems” which “can

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website serves as a wealth of information on prevention and treatment for many different topics. The website contains a section on cultural awareness for each of the topics. Stevens and Smith (2013) state “counselors need to gain an understanding of the history and background of their clients to address their issues within the context in which they are present” (p. 335). Cultural diversity is a major component in the United States today, therefore treatment and prevention plans need to account for this diversity in order to help these populations. Upon perusing the topics on the SAMHSA website, I chose to explore information on suicide prevention. Under the cultural awareness

Burman stated that a strong cash economy and presence of traditional elders provided opportunities and role models for identification and integration with the majority and minority cultures. He also states that the “Results considering alcohol control as a community choice, while ignoring other community characteristics, indicated a positive correlation between suicide rates and dry status”, meaning the more dry the community, the more suicides via alcohol occurred.

The American Foundation of Suicide Prevention is a non-profit organization acknowledges that suicide and mental health problems are part of our society and by understanding this we can better support those in need, and suicide affects a tremendous amount of people and proper education and treatment can prevent people from committing suicide. “Each year in the United States, suicide claims over 40,000 lives - more than war, murder, and natural disasters combined…Suicide is not just a faceless health issue for our society - it affects real people.” (1.) The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) which was founded in 1987, is one of the leaders in fighting against suicide by offers research, education to those in need, and supports those people and their families that are affected by suicide.

One of the biggest risks that this program plans to prevent is the risk of the participants attempting suicide or having suicidal thoughts. To prevent this event

This year the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the country’s most prestigious university, lost four of its students to suicide. For a high school kid who has been trained to constantly aim for academic excellence, getting into KAIST is a dream come true, but living the dream means relentless struggle to survive the highly competitive environment. The pressure of schoolwork, and to succeed by parents is blamed as a big factor in pushing the students to end their lives.

As the country with one of the world highest suicide rates, Japan has the significant suicide issues in recent years. Suicide cases in Japan have been found across different gender-age groups with various occupations, in both males and females, from children to seniors, for various reasons. The negative impacts of unemployment problems and social pressures are the major reasons that causing suicides among Japanese people. In addition, there are several country-specific and culture-specific kinds of suicides in Japan, such like honor suicide (or moral suicide), Internet suicide, responsibility-driven suicide, and charcoal burning suicide. There are several important factors linked to the suicide rates, which are levels of incomes, economic growth, divorce rate, birth rate, female labor force participation rate, and alcohol consumption. The negative impacts from those factors have been increasing the suicide rates in Japan. Those factors are directly influencing the suicide rates. Besides those direct factors, there are lots of indirect factors that influence the suicide rates in Japan, such as movies, music, TV shows, and reading materials. Those direct factors give people motivations to suicide, and those indirect factors give people ideas or instigation to suicide. The negative impacts of suicides in Japan are not only influencing people who have involved in suicide cases, but also influencing the entire Japanese society. By tracing the data of suicide rates in Japan over

Japan has always been one of the great powers of the world. It has one of the highest economies globally and that is due to the efficiency and perseverance of the Japanese workers. However, it has one of the highest suicide rates in the world which makes it sound abnormal for such a successful country. It reached 19.5 suicides among every 100,000 Japanese. In addition, In 2003, 34,000 lives were lost to suicide and the number decreased till it reached 21,897 suicides in 2016 which is still not a number to be celebrated. Japan suicide rate may be high as many Japanese suffer from financial problems. However, to explain the “Why” we need to look at Japan’s Religions which open possibilities to commit suicide.