By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News
Across the nation, September is recognized as Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month. As such, Castle Country Radio has chosen to spotlight the HOPE Squad of Carbon, Emery and Grand counties as its Charity of the Month.
Dedicated to creating a stigma-free approach to seeking help and to spreading awareness on mental health and suicide prevention and providing support for suicide loss survivors, the HOPE Squad has quickly become a community staple.
To discuss the organization and its many plans for Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, the KOAL newsroom was joined by Suicide Prevention Liaison for Four Corners Community Behavioral Health, Amanda McIntosh, to help shine a light on the HOPE Squad.
“The mission of the Hope Squad of Carbon, Emory, and Grand County is to educate, promote, and spread awareness for a healthier community with an emphasis on mental health, suicide prevention, support for suicide loss survivors, and to cultivate a stigma-free approach to seeking help,” explained McIntosh. “Together with all the partnerships and support and expertise of multiple agencies throughout the counties, our overall goal is to reduce the number of people who die by suicide.”
To help promote this mission throughout September, the HOPE Squad will host several events aimed at getting the community involved with suicide prevention. “Wednesday, Sept. 10, is World Suicide Prevention Day. For the past seven or eight years, we’ve held a candlelight vigil at Price Peace Gardens every year. This event happens worldwide, where people come together with candles, and at 8 p.m. in their respective time zones, they light the candle in honor of their loved one who has been lost to suicide. And it’s a way for us as community members and survivors of suicide loss to come together in a reverent way and really talk about our loved ones. Because in this realm of losing a loved one to suicide, oftentimes it’s hard to talk about our loved one without it being automatically associated with how they died. So the candlelight vigil is an opportunity to talk about how they lived and the impact that they had on the lives of their family and their friends in the community.”
The marquee event of the September slate is the annual HOPE Walk, which takes place on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 10 a.m. “his is a more celebratory event for all the work that’s been done in the community for suicide prevention, but is also a place for family and friends to gather and make a difference and be loud about suicide prevention and advocate for more resources and more help for our community, but also to invigorate others or to inspire others to reach out for help before it gets to a devastating loss for community members.”
She added,” It’s great to see how big it’s getting because people are coming forward and they’re feeling more comfortable being in this space with us. But at the same time, it’s sad to see how much it’s growing, because that means that we’re losing that many more people to suicide. And so it’s great to have the attendance. But it’s also sad, too, you know, that more people are being enveloped in this community of survivors of suicide loss or temp survivors or just family that is supporting their loved ones that are experiencing mental health stressors or anxiety and things like that.”
Entering into prevention work full-time in 2018, McIntosh shared the most significant positive change she’s seen since being fully enveloped in the field,” I think when COVID happened, when we were isolated and we were torn apart from our families. We weren’t able to celebrate together and things like that. There was a huge emphasis put on checking in on each other, and really checking in on your own mental health and checking in on other people’s mental health. And so that was a paradigm shift in how we approach the whole body experience. We’re not just checking in on your physical wellness. We’re checking in on your mental wellness.”
McIntosh continued, “And because we can have those conversations more in open spaces, outwardly conversations, it’s been a great progress toward, you know, getting resources in the hands of those who need us. I also feel in recent years that the emphasis on means restriction and storing our guns and locking away medications has also become more of the norm rather than an adversary for, you know, people’s constitutional rights aren’t implicated or anything like that. We really have tried to push this narrative that we are not for gun control whatsoever, but we are for gun safety.”
The Suicide Prevention Liaison also shared how to get in contact with the HOPE Squad,” If you want to get involved at the local level with the HOPE Squad of Carbon, Emery and Grand Counties, go on to our Facebook page or our Instagram page and shoot me a message or send me a text message. My phone number is 702-419-3471. You can direct message me, text me or call me. I don’t care. I’ll answer.”
She also supplied other resources available across the Castle Country,” I sit on the board for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Utah chapter, and we’re always looking for more voices to be present on that board … We also have NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. We have a Utah chapter where they have online support groups, and they have people readily available to help in a mental health crisis. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Four Corners Community Behavioral Health and the work that we’re doing in the prevention department, trying to get messaging out to the community … We also have 988. You can chat with them online, available 24-7-365. And you won’t be disappointed when you reach out for help because somebody is going to be on the other end of that line to take the call.”
Closing our conversation, McIntosh shared,” Hope with us and connect with others. Make sure that you are checking in not just on your own mental health, but also on others’ mental health. If something is out of the ordinary in somebody’s behavior or situational or things that they are saying out loud; there is no shame in asking them if they are thinking of hurting themselves and getting them to the resources here locally, statewide, nationwide, that can prevent the tragedy of losing somebody to suicide. Their life is worth it. Your life is worth it. We love you. You deserve to be here.”
Castle Country Radio would like to thank the HOPE Squad for their tireless efforts to improve our area through their hard work and dedication to suicide awareness and prevention. To contact the HOPE Squad of Carbon, Emery and Grand counties, you can visit their Facebook page or Instagram page.
*For those struggling with thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by dialing 988 any time for support. Resources are also available at utahsuicideprevention.org.