Prevent Youth Suicide

If you’re thinking about suicide, are worried about a friend or loved one, or would like emotional support, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or chat through their website.

The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support.

Perhaps the most important risk factor is access to “lethal means of self-harm,” meaning whether a child in crisis has the ability to access something like a gun or harmful prescription drugs.

Thoughts of suicide and suicide attempts are more common among children who experience mental health issues like anxiety and depression. However, mental health is only one of a variety of factors that impact youth suicide. Other important factors include exposure to a range of personal and social risk factors, such as:

• Persistent stress;
• Acute loss or rejection;
• Bullying;
• Childhood abuse;
• Trauma;
• Social isolation; and
• Family violence or disruption.

Children who experience one or more of the risk factors listed above may be at higher risk of suicide. Gender and sexual orientation can have significant impact on suicide risk, because of the social discrimination that LGBTQ youth often experience.

In North Carolina, 16% of high school students in 2017 reported seriously considering suicide. This figure included 12% of heterosexual students, and a staggering 43% of gay, lesbian, or bisexual students.

• Reducing barriers to mental health care;
• Making it harder for youth to get access to deadly tools, such as guns and prescription drugs;
• Ensuring that caring adults in a child’s life are trained to spot and respond to risk factors. These adults include parents and caregivers as well as school safety personnel such as nurses, social workers, and psychologists.

The influence of caring and well-trained adults, combined with evidence-based solutions that reduce stress on youth, can prevent dangerous feelings of hopelessness in children and adolescents.

Increase the number of health and mental health professionals in school settings.

• North Carolina has huge shortages of nurses, social workers, and school psychologists. The most recent data show that North Carolina has one school counselor to every 378 students, and the school nurse ratio is even worse – one nurse for every 1,021 students.
• The NC General Assembly should provide funding to get school nurses and counselors up to nationally recommended ratios.

Restrict access to deadly tools.

• One in three US households in the US owns at least one gun. Of those households with both guns and children in the home, more than 20% of them reported storing the gun loaded AND unlocked. “Safe storage” programs that make guns harder for youth to get can save lives.
• Pain medicine and other potentially harmful drugs must be locked where youth cannot get to them. Unused medicines can be safely disposed through local programs like Operation Medicine Drop.

The NC Child Fatality Task Force has recommended that the NC General Assembly take several steps to prevent youth suicide in North Carolina:

• Add 100 school nurses in high-need districts across the state;
• Enact legislation requiring suicide prevention training and risk referral in all NC public schools;
• Establish a full-time School Social Worker Consultant in the NC Department of Public Instruction to support school social workers across the state; and
• Promote a statewide firearm safety program to make it harder for children to get access to guns.