Essentia Health-Fargopediatrics team completes suicide-prevention training

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According to theA meric an Foundation forSuicidePrevention (A FSP),suicide is thesecond-leading causeofdeath for indi vidualsages10 to 24 in NorthDakot aand Minnesota. Betweenthe twos tates, about74% of communities in 2021 didnot have enough mentalhealth provider sto serveresident s, according to federal guidelines.

Knowingthese number sand suicide’s impac t, theEssentiaHealth -Fargo pediatrics team recently completed suicide -preventiontrainingthrough SafeSide Prevention.

Held by theNor th Dakota AF SP,the training –S afeSide Pr imar yC ARE– was made possibleby agrantfromthe NorthDakot aDepar tmentofHuman Serv ices ’Behav ioralHealth Di vision.

As part of it sProjec t2025initiative toreduce thesuicide rate 20 %by2025, theA FSPhasidenti fied health care sy stemsasone of four cr iticalareas throughwhichthemost li vesc an be savedinthe shor test amountoftime.

According to SafeSide,about athird of people whodie by suicide visita primary care providerw ithinamonth of theirdeath.Dr. DhilhanMarasinghe, sectionchairofpediatr ic sfor Essentia Health ’s West Mar ket, explains that youthinpar ticularare at riskin the digit alage.

“W iththe introduc tion of social mediaand smartphone access ,we’ ve seen anationalspike in thenumber of suicidalthoughts andactivesuicides in ourteenagepopulation,” said Dr. Marasinghe. “Fromapediatr ician st andpoint, this training is super impor tant forus.”

Thethree -par t, interac ti ve, videobasedtrainingprovidesaframework for supportinga cohesi veapproach to screen forsuicide riskin pr imary care.Itequipsthe team,fromnur ses androomings taff to provider s, with prac ticalactions to take when apatient maybethinkingaboutsuicide.

“I wantour patients to know that ourpediatr ic steam takesthisvery seriousl y, andthat’sw hywe have commit tedtothisasanentire depar tment,”s aid Dr.Marasinghe.“ If we canall traintogether, work asa team,and even saveone kidf rom suicide,that’sa winonour part .” n Connect :Develop arelationship withthepatient andpiece together theirs tory. n A ssess: Gatherand summarize infor mation that ’s ac tionable,notjust about“risk .” n Respond:Deter mineaninitial planfor thenow as wellaspossible contingencies. n E xtend: Es tablishrolesforfamily andother suppor ts andprovide referrals to behav ioral health.

TheS afeSide Pr imar yC AREtraining detailshow best torespondtosuicide concerns within thetimeand resource cons traints of pr imar yc are.

“One of the most import ant things when it comes to suicide prevention is knowing what ques tionsto askandbeing comfor table doingso,” said Dr.Marasinghe.

Conver sationsaredi videdinto four part s– connec t, assess, respond andextend– with di fferentlearning objectives ands tandardized ques tions andprompts.

“Our goal is that when akid is ready to talk abouttheirsuicidalthoughts, anyoneonour team canjumpin,” explainedDr. Marasinghe. “Doc tors aren ’t theonl yonesw ho canhave these conver sations. Andit’snot just canwes topsuicide,bu tc anwe get thesepatients bet ter?”

In additiontothe Fargopediatrics team,EssentiaHealth famil ymedicine provider sandpediatr iciansin Jamestown, Valley City andLisbonare participating in theNor th Dakota grantfunded SafeSide Primary CA RE training.

SafeSide serves organiz ationsin Australia, Canada,New Zealand, the UK andthe U. S. It provides leader ship consultation andworkforce educ ation for health, mentalhealth, educ ational andgovernmentalorganiz ations seeking touniteand inspire their ment al health andprimary care work forcestopreventsuicide.

If youorsomeone youknow is in crisis, there is help.Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifelineat9 88 or (8 00)2 73 -8 255 or connec twith theCrisisText Line by textingTALKto741741. Both areavailable 24 /7 from anywhere in the U. S.

If in theFargoarea,a 24 -hour Mobile Crisis Line is available at (701)2 98 -4 50 0or(888)3 42 -4 900. Fora list of LGBTQcrisis and suppor tresources ,visitaf sp.org.

Learnmoreabout Essentia’s behavioralandmentalhealth ser vicesatEssentiaHealth.org. Learn howtoget helpandsupport aloved one at af sp.org/get-help.

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