The McLean County Center for Human Services (MCCHS) is trying to make suicide prevention training more accessible, so it’s started offering a course in American Sign Language (ASL).
“One of the things that we've discovered as we started doing trainings, is that there are a lot of communities who don't have these types of resources,” said mental health awareness trainer Rose Addo. “And so as we've talked to people who are Spanish speaking or French speaking, we started talking about ways that we might be able to branch out.”
Addo said it was her idea to do a course in ASL. Though she’s hearing, she grew up in a deaf household and said it’s her first language.
While no one in the county requested the course, she said she knows some people might need it.
“When it comes to suicide prevention training, we know that suicide does not respect any socioeconomic status,” Addo said. “It doesn't respect any race or religion or anything like that, so every community is affected by suicide, and so we are trying to make sure that we can offer this training to anyone who's interested in it.”
Trainings are free for the same reason. Both the regular course — which also happens once a month — and the ASL option are open to all.
MCCHS also offers free Mental Health First Aid training, which is longer and more intensive than the suicide prevention training. However, both are accredited programs.
The suicide prevention training is called QPR, which stands for “question, persuade and refer.” It was created in 1995 to model CPR. Instead of responding to a physical health crisis, people who take QPR can intervene when someone is having a mental health crisis.
Addo explained it as a way of showing people suicide is preventable.
“We go through why it's important to take the training, and we explain to people that the most important thing they can do if they think that someone is thinking about suicide is ask them,” she said.
Most people don’t ask, Addo said, because they’re scared of what to do next.
“We talk to them about what that conversation can look like, what they should do after they have the conversation and we try to make sure they have resources,” she said.
MCCHS provides information about both local and national resources for people in mental health crisis. The center is a resource itself, as the operator of Behavioral Health Urgent Care (BHUC), the area’s only 24-hour crisis stabilization.
Addo is hosting the next QPR session in ASL on July 25. The next regular session is in August. Sign-up information is on the center’s website.
