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STOPS Aims For A 'Suicide-Safe Community'

Tegan Wendland
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WWNO

St. Tammany Parish has one of the highest rates of suicide in the state. It’s a problem that advocates are trying to solve and officials are trying to understand.

St. Tammany Outreach for the Prevention of Suicide, or STOPS, is determined to get the community talking about this problem, and to help those impacted. The 46 suicides in St Tammany Parish last year was a new record. But it’s an old problem. Parish resident Ricky Bryant is part of a long list that stretches back a few decades.

Virginia Blanke Briant remembers finding her son 24 years ago.

“I found him on the floor. And I can remember thinking that someone must have broke into the house and killed him and that I was next,” she says. “So I kind of just froze and I looked around and I wanted to know if it was someone I knew or if it was just random. And then of course there was nobody and I looked and of course the gun was in his hand.”

Briant says, looking back now, she can see that there were signs. Ricky’s girlfriend had broken up with him and he had gotten a bad grade, but it wasn’t serious enough to make her suspect anything.

“We talked a lot, about most anything, and we were real close. The subject of suicide came up one time and he said, ‘Mamma I would never do that, it’s against my religion.’ So I sort of took a deep breath and thought ‘Whew, I don’t have to worry about that.’”

She says at the time, her son’s death hit everybody in the close knit community hard. There was an assumption that only those who abused drugs or alcohol would take their own lives, and it was a shock to lose such a young, seemingly healthy teenager. After grieving, Briant got proactive, and founded STOPS with a group of other concerned community members.

Credit Tegan Wendland / WWNO
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WWNO
STOPS volunteer Pat Washburn, director Lynette Savoie, and volunteer Virginia Blanke Briant say talking openly about suicide helps reduce the risk.

St. Tammany Parish has about 19 suicides per 100,000 residents, compared to a national average of 12.

Lynette Savoie is the director of STOPS and says she doesn’t know why the numbers remain so high.

“I wish I knew, because if we knew there would be more that we could do to directly address the suicides.” Savoie says there are warning signs, “People are depressed, they give their things away, they eat more, the sleep more, they sleep less — changes in behavior are a red flag.”

Part of STOPS’s goal is to take away the stigma of talking about suicide in order to help identify those red flags. To do that, they train local social workers, teachers and caregivers.

“I think a big thing is to not take any sort of warning sign lightly, to take action quickly and to speak directly to the person who could possibly be at risk,” Savoie says. She trains people to ask outright: “Are you thinking about committing suicide?”

But the suicides continue, so STOPS developed a special response program called the LOSS Team. It’s made up of volunteers like Pat Mashburn, who get a call from the sheriff’s office every time there’s a suicide. They rush to the scene to support the survivors.

People who are experiencing the intense shock of a suicide have a lot of questions. Bryant says she was in so much shock, she couldn’t even remember how to dial 911. “I remember when Ricky died, there was nobody. So when the coroner leaves and took my son’s body and the police all leave, you just stand there, you don’t know what to do.”

Mashburn says providing guidance at the scene supports the mental health of survivors. “One of the first things I lead with is ‘Here’s help, when you’re ready.’” Theen he finds out where all of the family members are and tries to get them all in one place. “I will talk to the family and try to move them into another area so that they don’t have to see their loved one being carried out in a body bag.”

Briant is grateful to have the opportunity to share her son’s life and her loss with other survivors and hopes that by speaking at high schools and youth groups, she can help prevent others from choosing the same path. She pulled a framed photo out of her purse. “He just looks like a good looking 16-year-old boy with his whole future and life ahead of him”

Support for Northshore Focus comes from the Northshore Community Foundation.

If you or someone you know is at-risk, please call the national suicide hotline, 1-800-273-TALK.

Tegan has reported on the coast for WWNO since 2015. In this role she has covered a wide range of issues and subjects related to coastal land loss, coastal restoration, and the culture and economy of Louisiana’s coastal zone, with a focus on solutions and the human dimensions of climate change. Her reporting has been aired nationally on Planet Money, Reveal, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Marketplace, BBC, CBC and other outlets. She’s a recipient of the Pulitzer Connected Coastlines grant, CUNY Resilience Fellowship, Metcalf Fellowship, and countless national and regional awards.