Mid-Valley Suicide Prevention Coalition Meeting

October 26, 2016

Successes:

16 QPR Facilitators through the Coalition are providing regular trainings throughout Polk and Marion County
As of this meeting, 601 people have been trained in QPR, which means we are training an average of about 100 people per month since we got started.
Some of the recent trainings have included
Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis
Organized by 2 students as part of their Senior project.
Community Action Agency Head Start, Family Educators
Polk Fire Department
Salem Health
Dallas School District
Teachers, Admin, and Classified staff have been trained
Perrydale
All staff and all high school students have been trained
Central High School
2 Power Peers classes
Upcoming trainings include:
Talmadge Middle School
Hayley Atkinson will be providing training to all 7th graders as part of their health curriculum this year. The first half will be completed on October 31st and the second half will be done in the Spring.
LaCreole Middle School
Michele Schilling will be offering training to staff during an upcoming in service day
Special thanks again to Yugo’s Pizza for providing dinner for a community QPR training. Thanks to their donation we were able to offer a free dinner along with the free training.
Thank you to all of the partners who continue to donate space and host these trainings. Because of these great partnerships, we are able to continue to offer QPR trainings free of charge to anyone in our community that may be interested.

Central High School Power Peers

This nontraditional leadership class selected suicide prevention as a topic that they wanted to tackle this year.
A group of 10 students is working as a sub-committee of the coalition to provide a youth voice to our suicide prevention efforts
Special thanks to teacher, Rosanna Larson, for making this happen
Students are working on developing a series of commercials and posters as a suicide prevention campaign that can be rolled out throughout the spring in their school.

Leveraged funds

Currently our best estimate of funds that have been leveraged to date is $69,000. This means that we have nearly doubled the amount of money that we started with from the grants from Salem Health and the Siletz Tribe.

Youth Suicide Prevention Conference

Conference was held in Portland on September 22nd and 23rd
Congratulations to Levi Smith! Prior to the conference, we were contacted and asked if Levi’s video could be used as part of the closing ceremony. Levi’s video was shared with people from around the state and it was great to see our little county get recognized for the work that is taking place here.
Levi’s video is still available to view on both the website and Facebook page.

Older Adults Sub-Committee

This group is newly formed and meets to discuss the needs of the older adults in our communities.
Their first meeting took place on October 25th

Sea Legs Media Project

The project is still moving forward. Filming is set to begin in November. Stay tuned for more details.
The project will tell the story of local residents who have been impacted in a number of ways by suicide.

Upcoming ASIST Training

ASIST will be offered again on December 15 &16 at the Chemeketa Polk Center.
Big thank you to Glen Miller at Chemeketa for working with us to provide a space for the training to take place.
Training will be offered at a reduced rate of $70 per participant, which covers the cost of training materials and lunch for both days.
Registration is open on our website

Willamette Valley Hospice Presentation: Suicide Loss Grief Support Group

Thank you Jan and team for your presentation and the work you are doing with the suicide survivor loss support group, you are making a difference!
Group meets on the 2nd Thursday of every month from 6pm to 7:30pm
Group addresses one topic per month, topics include:
What is Grief?
Difficult Emotions
Surviving Suicide
Managing Anger
Relationships and Grief after a Suicide
Drop-ins are welcome at any time for this group. You do not have to attend every month.
Resources for this group come from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
There are not currently any other groups like this in the area

Resource Introduction: Kristi Woolner

Kristi is the new Suicide Prevention Coordinator for the WESD
WESD will have a school based suicide prevention guide available on their website within the next week.
The guide is streamlined and self-explanatory, but Kristi is willing to come and chat with anyone who may have questions about the resource.
Kristi is a certified QPR Facilitator and will begin providing trainings next week at the Gervais School District
Good Luck with your first training!

Senate Bill 561

Kerry Blum was unable to attend this meeting but will be on the agenda at the next meeting to provide more details about this bill.
Bill focuses on post-vention
If a death is ruled a suicide and the person is under age 25:
State must be notified within 7 days, notification must include a plan for response.

Ideas for more outreach

Next Coalition Meeting