Help SAVE a life, You have been challenged!
Photo by Josh McDonald Members of the Silver Valley Kiwanis Club as well as representatives from the SAVE Coalition stand together after the Kiwanis Club completed their QPR training. The blue sign being held up reads: The Silver Valley Kiwanis Club challenges the Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Kellogg Roatary Club to train in QPR and then challenge another group to do the same.
The Silver Valley Kiwanis Club was at Noah’s in Kellogg on Tuesday where they took part in QPR training courtesy of the SAVE Coalition.
QPR training is one of the many things that SAVE (Support, Action, Volunteerism, Education) does to help educate people on suicide and could, one day, help save (pun intended) a life.
The Kiwanis Club wants to help SAVE spread their message by becoming certified in QPR training and then challenging others to get the certification themselves.
SAVE members Andrea Garner and Jana Nearing were on hand to give the QPR training to the group.
“QPR, much like CPR isn’t going to prevent everything, but it is the first line of defense to help educate people on how to get people to where they need to be to get the help they need,” Garner said.
Suicide in Shoshone County has been a big issue over the last few years and a lot of it has experts very confused.
“We were averaging a suicide every two months here,” Garner said. “We as a county had the third highest suicide rate in the state and as a state we were ranked fifth in suicides.”
Nearing chimed in to that point as well, discussing how unusual the demographics were here in Shoshone County.
“The unique thing about Shoshone County statistically speaking is that high population of people who actually complete suicide are Native American and we are one of the top five communities who has a high suicide rate in county without a high population of Native Americans,” Nearing said. “Researchers now have to take a closer look because we don’t fit the usual demographics. We also have a higher demographic of men completing suicide which is not usual.”
But, despite that grim news the SAVE Coalition was pleased to announce that the number of suicides went down from eight in 2015 to four in 2016.
Kiwanis member Tobey Hojem was very candid on why she thought the training was a good idea for the club.
“It seem like in the past five years there have been numerous suicides of all ages,” Hojem said. “It is very sad and as a group we believe it starts with us to do something about it. Learning QPR was offered and we decided to take action.”
QPR is a simple form of gateway training that allows regular people to help others who are possibly contemplating suicide and takes 1-2 hours to complete.
The process follows three steps: (1) Question the individual's desire or intent regarding suicide, (2) Persuade the person to seek and accept help, and (3) Refer the person to appropriate resources. Trainees receive a QPR booklet and wallet card as a review and resource tool that includes local referral resources.
The Kiwanis Club has is now challenging the Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Kellogg Rotary Club to get QPR certified.
For more information contact Andrea Garner with SAVE at Shoshone Medical Center at (208) 784-1221.