Getting gatekeepers prepared, trained

Rick Charmoli | Cadillac News Mark LoMurray discusses tactics with youth advocates from various schools, churches, clubs and other youth-serving organizations during a peer gatekeeping training session Thursday. The Sources of Strength: Peer Gatekeeper Training they received will be used to train teens to help other teens who are struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide.

CADILLAC — Youth in the area will be an important part in the fight against depression and suicide.

A training session aimed at getting teens ready to help each other was held for various youth advocates in the area and the point is to prepare teens to be peer gatekeepers.

A “gatekeeper,” in terms of the Suicide Prevention Plan for Michigan, is a person who regularly comes into contact with individuals or families in distress.

Teresa Acre said she was devastated when a number of area youth died by suicide in the fall of 2005 and throughout 2006 so when an opportunity presented itself to try and help she took it. Acre was one of many youth group leaders, school counselors, coaches and mental health professionals who finished the two-day Sources of Strength: Peer Gatekeeper Training on Thursday.

“Our senior pastor is part of the (Wexford-Missaukee Suicide Prevention) coalition group and he recommended I come with another youth leader,” said the parent and Boon Foursquare Lighthouse Church member. “Our goal is to help these kids and give them the opportunity for a long life.”

With the conclusion of the training, the goal of the counselors, youth leaders and other adults is to find youth to give the training to. This includes three- to four-hour interactive sessions with as many as 25 teen leaders.

The focus of these teen training sessions includes increasing knowledge of risk and protective factors as well as changing attitudes around codes of silence and involving adults with suicidal peers.

Lake City Middle School Counselor Laura Fichtner said she already has ideas on how to get the training out to the students in her school.

“I want to expand what we do with mentoring. We have a group of Natural Helpers but I want to better utilize them and have better one-on-one mentors,” Fichtner said. “It is giving me a lot of ideas.”

Forty-five adults attended the training held at Baker College in Cadillac. The training for this program was conducted by Mark LoMurray, who is the director of the North Dakota Adolescent Suicide Prevention Program.

The training was paid for through a grant from the Cadillac Area Community Foundation Youth Activities Committee and Northern Lakes Community Mental Health.

For more information about the program or on LoMurray go to www.ndsuicideprevention.org or call (701) 471-7186.

rcharmoli@cadillacnews.com | 775-NEWS (6397)