La Plata County has seen too many suicides.
That has left community members wrestling with their own emotions and the best ways to respond.
The Herald’s Creating Connections youth suicide prevention series, which launches Friday, sets out to explore the most effective steps schools, health care providers, clubs and other community institutions can take.
The Herald and its series partner, KDUR, did not set out to identify how agencies may have failed a certain person or to assign blame for any death.
Rather, they examined programs and changes that have been launched locally that have seen successful in other communities.
Durango and Bayfield schools are introducing Sources of Strength, a program aimed at promoting mental wellness among teens, and local health care systems are adopting a national model focused on ending suicide among patients.
The cities and towns mentioned in the series are not meant to provide a precise road map for communities in La Plata County. But we should remain open to the lessons other communities can teach, because deaths by suicide, depression and anxiety are on the rise across the nation, particularly in the Mountain West.
Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and other rugged and largely rural states struggle with high rates. An ingrained sense of individualism, residential instability that leads to a lack of social bonds and high altitude are all thought to possibly contribute to the problem.
While some suicide risk factors are shared across generations, this series sought to identify factors specific to youth and subgroups at particular risk today.
The series is not an exhaustive review of all the efforts to stem suicide in our community. Still, the reporters and editors tried to select some of the most visible ones and highlighted those meeting the needs of minority groups such as Hispanics, Native Americans and the LGBTQ-plus community.
In some cases, clear science was not available to backup suicide prevention founded in faith or culture, but we found compelling anecdotal evidence.
For example, the Catholic Church and large families provide important social supports to many members of the Latino community in Durango.
The importance of social connections between adults and teens in suicide prevention came up over and over again. But building meaningful relationships and reaching those young people who are the most isolated and therefore the most at-risk for suicide takes commitment.
It also requires adults to see young people as their partners in prevention and to listen to their perspectives so that we can more fully understand the problems they are facing and what they see as the solutions. We shouldn’t expect schools, health care institutions or nonprofits to be solely responsible.
Everyone can play a role.
Each of us, in our circles of connections, can encourage conversation about this topic that was once more taboo. We can talk about wellness and the best ways to support our friends and fellow citizens whom we suspect may be struggling.
What we must not do is simply accept that rates of suicide will keep rising. We cannot fall into the trap of believing that there is anything inevitable about more and more young people battling anxiety and depression. To blame it on our age, or technology, or any of the other many false culprits is an abdication of what we have always owed to one another.
