Suicide Prevention Committee to launch resource webpage, PSAs and volunteer crisis-response team

Public-information and public-health staff told the Suicide Prevention Committee they can host a suicide-prevention web page under the health department umbrella and populate it with immediate resources, QR codes and an up-to-date roster. Jaime Perez, the health department public-information officer, said the health department can assemble the page and present a draft by the committee’s next meeting and ideally make a public announcement around Nov. 14, a date the committee flagged for a men’s mental-health outreach tie-in.

Committee members agreed to produce short, 30-second agency PSAs for holiday and year-round outreach. Dr. Julie Bassam asked committees and agencies to "create your own message" and noted the committee would collect materials for local media placement and targeted times of day informed by police data.

Volunteers and the Area Health Education Center outlined a proposal to form a Crisis Response Volunteer Team (also described as a "loss team") to provide nonprofessional support to families after a suicide. Rosanna (AHEC volunteer) described logistics: volunteers would receive training, coordinate with police and first responders, and only provide support with family permission. A recruitment luncheon was proposed with a tentative RSVP deadline to organize initial volunteers and training modules.

Next steps: Public information officer will start building the webpage and accept committee submissions (names, bios, resources). Committee members were asked to create PSAs and to sign up if interested in the volunteer loss team; AHEC will coordinate a volunteer informational luncheon and identify training resources.