NB Minutes "CAP has had more visable suicides lately"

[GoofyOne]

Why does this not surprise me.  We are here to volunteer because we care.  We want to give 100% of our efforts but the baloney we have to go through just on the politics side of things, I'm not even going to touch the occasional confusion on the regs.
When you have to live with the thought that the IG may call anytime because there is a sitation in your squadron that they want your input on.  The Commander that pumps his or her chest to want to look good but in actuality is destroying morale.  You could use a pat on the back because you just did 48 hours of CAP work.
The fear you have rubbed somebody wrong and they are just looking for you to mess up.
The long time member who had a heart attack because the work he had to do was so stressful and he knew he was between a rock and a hard place.
These are true things that have happened to really good people I know.  They stay because they care and desperatly hope things will get better.  They aren't quitters because they believe in the program.
When will somebody wake up to all of this.  Yes there are some unstable people out there.  On the same hand CAP is all some people have and the only friendships they have.

[dwb]

 

[notaNCO forever]

+1

[Eclipse]

+1

+ one more.

[davidsinn]

+1

+ one more.

And me.

The culture in CAP is causing people to kill themselves. Is that what you're trying to say?

I can say from first hand experience that CAP kept me from killing myself. It gave me a purpose during a very dark time in my life so I guess I would have to disagree with your assessment.

[Spike]

I think he is trying to say there was something mentioned on suicide by CAP Members at the National Board Meeting??

If that is not the case........I am totally confused.  Some times when I get so confused I want to jump off a bridge and...........

[N Harmon]

I'm guessing some didn't get the "CAP and Suicide" handout...

Civil Air Patrol and Suicide
Prepared by Sam D. Bernard (PhD) Lt. Col
National CISM Team Leader

Whereas:
1. In 2006, 33,300 Americans died by suicide with the following breakdown:
a. 26,308 males and 6,992 females
b. 30,138 whites, 3,138 non-whites of which 1,954 Blacks
c. 5,299 elderly (65+)
d. 4,189 youth (15-24)
e. 219 pre-youth (0-14)

2. In 2006, the number of deaths by suicide
a. 91 people a day die by suicide
b. 72 males and 19 females a day die by suicide
c. 82 whites, 8 non-whites and 5 blacks a day die by suicide
d. 14 elderly (65+) people a day die by suicide
e. 11 young (15-24) people a day die by suicide

3. An average of 1 person every 15.8 minutes dies by suicide,
a. An average of 1 older person every 1 hour and 39.2 minutes dies by suicide,
b. An average of 1 young person every 2 hours and 5.5 minutes dies by suicide,

4. Suicide is the 11th ranking cause of death in the USA, homicides rank 15th
a. 3rd for young (15-24)

5. 832,500 suicide attempts in the USA (25:1) (attempts: completions)
a. 1 attempt every 38 seconds
i. 100-200:1 for young (15-24)
ii. 4:1 for elderly (65+)
iii. 3 female attempts for each male attempt

6. "Survivors" (friends and family members of a loved one who died by suicide)
a. Intimately affects at least 6 other people,
b. Based on 766,042 suicide from 1982-2006, 4.6 million suicide survivors in the USA
i. 1 of every 65 Americans in 2006
ii. Number grew by 199,800 in 2006
c. Approximately 200,000 new survivors per year

7. All branches of the US military now address suicide,

8. CAP has 56,759 Total members
a. Cadets: 22, 426  39.5% of total members
b. 65+: 7,961   14% of total members

9. Suicide contagion is real – "copy cat", "werther effect", "suicide contagion"

10. Within the past year, CAP had cadet/former cadets complete suicide, and unknown seniors.

Therefore:

Civil Air Patrol would be well served to address suicide in a proactive manner by:

1. Developing protocols/education with the goal of preventing deaths by suicide in cadets and seniors,

2. Develop protocols/education with the goal of providing appropriate intervention when suicide warning signs are noticed,

3. Develop protocols/education with the goal of providing appropriate intervention after a death by suicide

4. Develop protocols/education with the goal of adequately and appropriately addressing  the potential for "copy cat" suicides

Potential Training Resources:
• QPR: Question, Persuade and Refer, Well known program, 2 hours long http://www.qprinstitute.com

• ICISF: 2 day training, familiar model www.icisf.org

• ASIST: Canada based program, 2 days of intense training & role play http://www.livingworks.net/AS.php

• Yellow Ribbon: "card" based program  http://www.yellowribbon.org/

• Jason Foundation: focusing on schools – expanding to faith-based http://www.jasonfoundation.com/

• American Association of Suicidology: international leader
http://www.suicidology.org/web/guest/home

Resources:
Warning Signs: http://suicidology.org/web/guest/stats-and-tools/warning-signs
2006 National statistics: http://suicidology.org/web/guest/stats-and-tools/statistics
Fact Sheets: http://suicidology.org/web/guest/stats-and-tools/fact-sheets

Other web sites of interest:
American Association of Suicidology: http://suicidology.org/web/guest/home
Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network: www.tspn.org
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: http://www.afsp.org/
Suicide Prevention Resource Center: http://www.sprc.org/index.asp
Suicide Prevention Action Network: http://www.spanusa.org/

Sunday, June14, 2009
CAP & Suicide

[FW]

The "handout" is a good general representation of why we have a "CISM" program.  Suicide is not caused by any program.  It is caused by the mismanagement of stress and depression in individuals; not just CAP members.  We need to recognize situations which may lead individuals to suicide and help them get the treatment or counciling to prevent it.

The handout was not presented at the NB meeting however, it was discussed at a recent NB teliconference.

[davidsinn]

I'm guessing some didn't get the "CAP and Suicide" handout...

SNIP

Not only didn't get it, I've never heard of it.

[JC004]

I am confused.  I am unfamiliar with CAP causing suicides.  I've had some frustrating experiences with CAP, but never considered offing myself over missing paperwork or frustrating wing staff officers. 

I've been really reaaaaaally frustrated over some missed opportunities by past wing commanders and other wing staff (not that they're bad folk, I've never encountered a person on my wing's staff who is just a downright sucky human being), but even after 10 years, I don't see how members might feel like they have no alternative over CAP related things.  I've seen a lot of really great people leave CAP because of various issues with it, but offing themselves?   

[Short Field]

Sorry, but I am not impressed by the handout.  It fails to provide any type of linkage from suicides in general to CAP specifically.    Does CAP have the same numbers of suicides as the population in general?  Lower or higher?     If we already have lower numbers, then what is the goal they want to achieve?   Looks like just another program in search of a sponsor unless they can provide a linkage to CAP duties causing a higher suicide rate than average.

[Climbnsink]

CAP could piggyback on the DARE program teaching kids to play quarters with water and have a suicide awareness and noose tying class. 
Seriously this is retarded, check out #9 on the list.  That is valid concern and because of that anti-suicide stuff has to be undertaken with care.  It is in the publics interest to not report suicides if possible.  Which makes the whole thing baffling and a really bad idea.   

[Ned]

Sorry, but I am not impressed by the handout.  It fails to provide any type of linkage from suicides in general to CAP specifically.    Does CAP have the same numbers of suicides as the population in general?  Lower or higher?     If we already have lower numbers, then what is the goal they want to achieve?   Looks like just another program in search of a sponsor unless they can provide a linkage to CAP duties causing a higher suicide rate than average.

Part of the problem is that there is no reliable way to determine a suicide rate for CAP members, and without that questions such as yours become impossible to answer with any degree of confidence.

We are continuing to look at a possible suicide prevention program for CAP, even if CAP itself is not a contributing "cause" to a tragically high suicide rate among Americans in our age cohort. 

After all, we have a DDR program that is designed to help our cadets resist peer pressure.  In theory, so too could a well-designed suicide prevention program help "immunize" our cadets from suicidal ideation.

Of course there are substantial (and possibly impossible) challenges when it comes to designing such a program for a part-time program like ours.  Matters of subject matter expertise, an effective "evidence based" curriculum and resource materials, etc. are certainly daunting.

But NHQ CP, health services, and the CISM crew are continuing the conversation.


Ned Lee

[RiverAux]

Part of the problem is that there is no reliable way to determine a suicide rate for CAP members, and without that questions such as yours become impossible to answer with any degree of confidence.

And yet...

We are continuing to look at a possible suicide prevention program for CAP,

So, despite the fact that there is evidently no evidence that CAP has a worse than expected suicice rate or the more likely (in my opinion) situation that CAP has a much better than expected suicide rate, we're considering an anti-suicide program. 

CAP can not solve all the problems of all our cadets.  Yes, with 24K cadets there are going to be occassional sucides and our CISM folks should be aware of that and get some training in dealing with the aftermath.  But, I knew when I first saw that post that we were going to be heading towards mandatory suicide prevention programs for everybody and that is certainly what Ned is implying. 

Why do I feel like I'm just knocking my head against a wall today about statistics?  CAP needs to hire a statistician to both collect relevant information and put it in context for our decision makers and teach them a few things about the scientific method as well.

Maybe we'll pull back from the precipice this time... 

[lordmonar]

I'm sorry....but is it me or does this just seem like the CISM team is trying to justify their existance?

Don't get me wrong....I think it is a good idea in concept....but I get a nasty feeling that we got a new manditory suicide prevention breif/training/cbt heading our way.

Suicide prevention is requires contact time....and lets face it....2-3 hours a week with 10-20 cadets is just not enough to catch the signs.

[Climbnsink]

Good grief.  I'll be pissed if this turns into another useless training/awareness class.  CAP needs to round up the do-gooder recreational bureaucrats and shoot them dead. 

[Major Lord]

It's hard to believe that the document was written by a PhD. He shows statistics to demonstrate that suicide exists, then merely mentions that former or current cadets committed suicide in the last year, and implies that maybe-kinda-sorta a SM might have too. What an incredibly sloppy piece of thinking and typically bureaucratic and [self-serving] attempt to inculcate CAP with the culture of pseudo-psychology. Yes, lets let the people who spent our money on NASCAR create yet another pointless and impotent system to address a risk that may not even exist beyond normal Bell curve distribution. There is excellent evidence to indicate that CISM programs reinforce and perpetuate Delayed Stress Syndrome claims, so maybe we should start the suicide prevention program by investigating whether these people create more problems than they solve. Sweet mother of Buddha!

Major Lord


edit: watch the language [mod]

[Spike]

Good grief.  I'll be pissed if this turns into another useless training/awareness class.  CAP needs to round up the do-gooder recreational bureaucrats and shoot them dead. 

Or give them the guns to shoot themselves dead (this post was about suicides.....remember??)

[RiverAux]

CAP can't solve every problem of its seniors or cadets, nor should it try. 

[Ned]

Good grief.  I'll be pissed if this turns into another useless training/awareness class.  CAP needs to round up the do-gooder recreational bureaucrats and shoot them dead. 

Gregg,


I don't understand the hostility here.  I certainly agree that nobody wants or needs some sort of useless "death by PowerPoint" class disguised as a Suicide Prevention program.

Which is why we are looking for the genuine article - an evidence based program that we could effectively employ given the exisiting training and resource limitations of our dedicated senior members.

It is worth remembering that according to the CDC, suicide is the third leading cause of death for Americans in the 15-24 year old age group, accounting for over 12% of deaths annually in that cohort.

We may or may not be able to measurably reduce the risk to our cadets.  We can't know until we take a look at the "state of the art" / best practices in the field, and assess whether they can be employed in our unique program.

It could be something as simple as posting local Suicide Prevention numbers in unit bulletin boards and including suicide as an item to be considered during RST.

But we will continue to look at this as long as it presents as a serious risk to our cadets.