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Course aims to prevent suicide

Wednesday, 06 May 2009

DUBLIN 15 parents and community volunteers are being urged to take part in an upcoming training course to help prevent needless deaths through suicide. The Corduff Youth Health and Wellbeing Group is organising the two-day Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training next month. The aim of the workshop is to equip caregivers with the skills needed to help identify the tell-tales signs associated with those at risk of suicide. The upcoming course, which is free of charge, is specifically aimed at parents and volunteers who work with youth groups in the Corduff and Mulhuddart areas of Blanchardstown. Local development officer, Felix Gallagher, strongly recommends the course which he completed himself two years ago. “I found it really very beneficial and it’s helped me to talk to people and to be able to identify when they are in need of support and advice,” he told Northside People. “It’s helped me to counsel and identify those who are at risk of suicide. I learned that it’s so important to find the reason why they feel like they do and also to find their own reasons why they should stay alive. It’s vital that you get them to acknowledge what impact their death would have. “You then have advise that there are supports out there for those in need.” According to Mr Gallagher, the Dublin 15 region has been particularly affected by suicide. “There have been dozens of suicides over the last year,” he said. “We find that many of the suicides occur early in the week, whether that’s because of downers from weekend drug use, I don’t know.” A local mother who has experienced first hand the devastating affect of suicide is one of many who will participate in the upcoming course. “My son committed suicide two years ago,” she explained. “It would be impossible for me to say just how much it affected our family, friends, relatives and the wider community. “It was just like the rippling affect you get when you throw a big rock into a pond. “The last two years have been horrendous.” The heartbroken mother, who wished not to be named, explained how she has learned a lot about suicide since her son’s death. “At first I thought it was such a selfish act but then I started to get a handle on things and I began to think very differently,” she told Northside People. “The problem was that my son didn’t talk so no one knew where he was mentally. You just never know what kind of place someone is in unless you talk to them.” She added: “I will never fully come to terms with my son’s death. I still wait for him to come home and I set a table at dinner for him. But the one thing I can take from this is that my son’s friends feel they can come to talk to me about how they are feeling. His friends were devastated and I told them that no matter what, they can always come to me to talk at any time of the day or night.” By doing the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, the grieving mother hopes she might be able to spare even just one family from the “anguish, pain and heartache” that she and her family have suffered. For more information or to sign up for the course contact the Corduff Youth Health and Well-Being Group on 8219021.