The Literacy Educator's Role in Suicide Prevention

Douglas Fisher

Youth suicide is an epidemic. Annually, over 500,000 young adults, ages 15 to 25, attempt suicide and 5,000 young adults succeed (www.teen-depression.info), making it the fourth leading cause of death for children and youth ages 10–14 and the second leading cause of death for young adults ages 15–19 (National Center for Health Statistics, 2002). While teen suicide rates in the United States have declined in the last decade, the current rate remains double that of the 1950s.

Table 1 contains data on suicides by age. Although males are approximately four times more likely to commit suicide (National Center for Health Statistics, 2001), females are more likely than males to report a history of attempted suicide (National Institute for Mental Health, 2002). Thus, both males and females are at risk. The rate of suicide in large metropolitan counties in the United States is 13.2 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 18.0 deaths per 100,000 people in nonmetropolitan counties, suggesting that youth in urban communities are not at increased risk (National Center for Health Statistics, 2001).

Table 1. Death rates for suicide, 1950–2000 (view table)

Suicide is one of the more preventable causes of violent deaths. Approximately 80% of the people who attempt or commit suicide demonstrated warning signs in advance. The following are some of the signs of potential suicide in teens (www.suicidology.org):

talks about committing suicide
has trouble eating or sleeping
experiences drastic changes in behavior
withdraws from friends or social activities
gives away prized possessions
has attempted suicide before
takes unnecessary risks
is preoccupied with death and dying
loses interest in his or her personal appearance
increases his or her use of alcohol or drugs

According to the National Institute for Mental Health (2002), “the strongest risk factors for attempted suicide in youth are depression, alcohol or other drug use disorder, and aggressive or disruptive behaviors” (unpaged). Sexual orientation or adjustment to feelings of attraction to members of the same sex may also present an increased suicide risk (Lock & Steiner, 1999; Remafedi, Farrow, & Deisher, 1991). While some estimate that as many as 46% of all gay youth have attempted suicide, Garofalo, Wolf, Wissow, Woods, and Goodman (1999) documented that students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or not sure of their sexual orientation are 3.41 times more likely to report a suicide attempt.

Given this data, it seems reasonable to suggest that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of literacy educators who have first-hand experience with youth suicide. Unfortunately, professional conversations about the role that the literacy educator can assume are limited (e.g., Stupple, 1987) despite evidence that even children in the primary grades think and write about suicide (MacGillivray & Martinez, 1998). The remainder of this article focuses on the ways in which literacy educators can address suicide in their classrooms and help reduce the number of children and young adults who take their own lives.

A personal evolution of understanding youth suicide risk

Early in my career, a student attempted suicide while at school. During a faculty meeting that day, we were told that Jessica (all student names are pseudonyms) was depressed and wanted attention. The students at the school believed that she was “a lesbian punk.” Quite frankly, none of us gave the situation much thought, and we returned to class the following day. I doubt that any of the teachers discussed this event with students, changed their lessons to address suicide, or thought about other students who were at increased risk for suicide.