COASTAL SAMARITAN COUNSELING CENTER
ANNOUNCES SUICIDE PREVENTION TRAINING
MYRTLE BEACH, SC – The Coastal Samaritan Counseling Center will mark National Suicide Prevention Week (September 10-16) by hosting “QPR” Gatekeeper Training. QPR stands for Question-Persuade-Refer. Area clergy, church staffs, lay leadership, and community-wide leaders will have three opportunities to become “QPR trained Gatekeepers.” The training takes just one hour and is conducted by a QPR trainer. QPR is intended to teach those who are in a position of influence to recognize the warning signs, clues, and suicidal communications of people in trouble and to ACT vigorously to prevent a possible tragedy. A gatekeeper is anyone trained to recognize a suicide crisis and because of their training, knows how and where to find help. There were more suicides in South Carolina than homicides during the past 3 years, according to Mental Health America of South Carolina. South Carolina has an average of six suicides every 5 days. And 70% of attempted or completed suicides have never been touched by a mental health system. Of those youth who attempt suicide, only 20% are clinically depressed. The other 80% are dealing with some problem they don’t feel they can solve. Eighteen veterans a day take their own lives. We have lost more soldiers in the Iraq Afghanistan wars to suicide than we have in combat. Suicide is a major public health problem in South Carolina, costing taxpayers over 13 million each year on attempted and completed suicides. According to Rev. Greg Hill, Director of Consultative Services at Coastal Samaritan Counseling Center, “Suicide is 100% preventable. These QPR trainings teach people how to intervene, to instill hope, and save lives!”
For additional information, please call the Center at 843-448-4820 or go to the web site at: www.coastalsamaritan.org.
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