This has been designated Suicide Prevention Week in Indiana, which means its time for the state to crank out a press release but not do much else. If this is the problem:
Indiana has a higher rate of suicide than the nation as a whole. In 2002, Indiana had 12.1 suicides per 100,000 people, compared with 11 suicides per 100,000 people nationally, the coalition says. In 2002, 743 Hoosiers died by suicide, according to the coalition's Web site.
Then this is not the solution:
In response to a 2001 call to action by the U.S. surgeon general's office, the state formed the Indiana Suicide Prevention Coalition to increase awareness of suicide and educate individuals on warning signs and how to get help.
However, the coalition has a staff of only two part-time people.
Preventing suicide, when it can be done, requires the people around the person considering it to recognize the signs and know what they mean. When they think something might be up, and they need help coping with it, they need a srong, well-publicized local network that might or might not have some government-funded people on board. I'm not even sure how helpful the state can be, though it seems pretty obvious that staffing a "Suicide Prevention Bureau" two part-time people is not a serious attempt to discover that.
