September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Click to learn more.
Virtual Event Featured Dungeons and Dragons Celebrities and Icons
Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2020) – Jasper’s Game Day (JGD), a tabletop gaming organization out of Michigan, held the second annual Jasper’s Game Week May 2 – 7, 2020, convening some of the world’s biggest names in Dungeons and Dragons, including Satine Phoenix, Matthew Lillard, Anna Prosser, Chris Perkins, Todd Stashwick, Chris Lindsay, Matt Forbeck, Jim Zub, David Blue, Jason Charles Miller, Greg Tito, Todd Kenreck, Amy Lynn Dzura, Stefan Pokorny, Kailey Bray, Goldie Chan, Pat Rothfuss, The Dungeon Run cast, and others and produced by MTD Jake. The event brought more than 3000 live viewers over Twitch to watch incredible game play with the masters and to raise money for suicide prevention. The group managed to raise nearly $20,000 for the American Association of Suicidology’s youth-focused program, the National Center for the Prevention of Youth Suicide and for local crisis centers across the country. One of the biggest fundraisers of its kind, the organizers for JGD have shown the power of connection and relationships built during gaming can lead to incredible, real-world, life-saving outcomes. Next year’s streaming event is already being planned for May 1-6, 2021.
”Jasper’s Game week went better than I could’ve ever hoped for,” said Fenway Jones, founder and creator of Jasper’s Game Day. “The community came together to help support a very important cause and rallied to break donation goals even when we have to keep ourselves at home. I am so incredibly honored to be a part of such an amazing and supportive community!”
As a followup to this groundbreaking event, JGD will be hosting an online role playing game convention August 28-30, 2020. In addition, Fenway will be hosting her very own Dungeons and Dragons streaming show on gildinglight.tv this June.
“The 3rd annual Jasper’s Game Day live stream this year was incredible! 60 hours of live content with people from around the globe is an amazing feat,” said Satine Phoenix, Founder of Gildinglight.tv and world renowned dungeon master. “It is even more impressive that 17 year old Fenway Jones and her father put it all together with their real life adventuring team. It’s been an honor to watch this event grow and to see the entire Dungeons and Dragons community band together to support mental health programs.”
“Jasper’s Game Day, and their charity Dungeons and Dragons games, brought together dozens of gamers over the course of a week,” said Amy Lynn Dzura Community Manager D&D Adventurers League. “Due to quarantine conditions across the country, the games could not be held in person, but changing to an online event enabled even more members of the D&D community to come together in support of AAS. We are so incredibly proud of everything that Fenway and the Jasper’s team accomplishes for suicide prevention and awareness, all through the power of gaming”
Tabletop gaming, including role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, have been shown to positively impact players’ mental health by increasing confidence, utilizing leadership and communication skills, and teamwork. Gaming in these settings also reduces isolation, a known risk factor for suicide, but also tends to create and maintain long-lasting friendships for youth and adults alike.
“We are so excited to be working with Fenway, and even more impressed by her passion, energy, and dedication around our cause,” said Amy Kulp, Director of the National Center for the Prevention of Youth Suicide. “Through Jasper’s Game Day, Fenway is not only raising much-needed funding for youth suicide prevention, she is also providing information for and starting important conversations with those in the gaming community.”
For the Media: Responsible reporting on suicide, including stories of hope and resilience, can prevent more suicides. Please visit the Suicide Reporting Recommendations for more information.
About AAS: The American Association of Suicidology is the world’s largest membership-based suicide prevention organization. Founded in 1968 by Edwin S. Shneidman, PhD, AAS promotes the research of suicide and its prevention, public awareness programs, public education and training for professionals and volunteers. The membership of AAS includes mental health and public health professionals, researchers, suicide prevention and crisis intervention centers, school districts, crisis center volunteers, survivors of suicide loss, attempt survivors, and a variety of laypersons who have in interest in suicide prevention. You can learn more about AAS at www.suicidology.org.
About Jasper’s Game Day: After losing two close friends as a high schooler, Jasper’s Game Day founder, Fenway Jones decided to use her and her friends’ passion for Dungeons and Dragons to help raise awareness and funds for suicide prevention. JGD works to donate and distribute proceeds of the program to crisis centers across the US, helping them to answer the calls of those desperately in need of emotional support.
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Washington, D.C. (May 19, 2020) – Physical social distancing can create isolation, loneliness, anxiety, and depression. In suicidology, we know where that can lead and that’s unacceptable. As we continue into May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, the American Association of Suicidology (AAS) is pleased to announce the creation of the #SoulCareAAS365 Project to help address not only the fear-based confusion, uncertainty, and adversity resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, but also the traumatic impact that will linger long beyond May.
“Watching the tidal wave of lists and more to do lists and top 10 ‘How to manage emotions during a pandemic’ was overwhelming,” shared Annemarie Matulis, the AAS Impacted Family & Friends Division Chair. “We were having great success delivering our wellness workshops digitally, so why not take our #soulcare projects digital too, to let people see and hear the sound of a voice, see another person’s face and witness their energy to help make that all important connection and end the sense of isolation?”
The goal of the #SoulCareAAS365 Project is to present a campaign of emotional support, hope and solidarity by connecting people via live and recorded conversations, video messages, webinars, online roundtables and more, across multiple social media platforms.
To initiate the launch, the #SoulCareAAS365 Project is releasing two digital sample toolkits originally developed for Impacted Family & Friends: Is This the Night: Finding Inner Peace for impacted family and friends, and the Re-Energize & Re-Connect series for suicide attempt and loss survivors further along their recovery and healing paths. Both evidence-based, peer to peer wellness workshop series have been in place in a face to face setting since 2014. Each toolkit includes three to four exercises with companion conversational and casual coaching videos. The exercises were compiled by the AAS Impacted Family & Friends Division in collaboration with AVoiceattheTable.org.
The toolkits guide participants through a personal emotional inventory that will offer suggestions on how to better recognize one’s own behaviors and attitudes and make minor or, in some cases, major changes. This is nothing new. It’s just another way to experience the turnaround to step away from fear-driven attitudes and behaviors and improve the quality of life. New support materials will be added regularly.
For the Media: Responsible reporting on suicide, including stories of hope and resilience, can prevent more suicides. Please visit the Suicide Reporting Recommendations for more information.
About AAS: The American Association of Suicidology is the world’s largest membership-based suicide prevention organization. Founded in 1968 by Edwin S. Shneidman, PhD, AAS promotes the research of suicide and its prevention, public awareness programs, public education and training for professionals and volunteers. The membership of AAS includes mental health and public health professionals, researchers, suicide prevention and crisis intervention centers, school districts, crisis center volunteers, survivors of suicide loss, attempt survivors, and a variety of laypersons who have in interest in suicide prevention. You can learn more about AAS at www.suicidology.org.
About A Voice at the Table: For every person struggling with suicide, there are impacted family members and friends that experience emotional and physical effects related to their loved one’s struggle. A Voice at the Table was founded in 2014 as a grassroots movement dedicated to ending the marginalization of family members and close friends emotionally impacted and traumatized by the non-fatal suicidal experiences of their loved ones. A Voice at the Table operates as a division of a 501c3 non-profit in southeastern Massachusetts and has produced documentaries, developed psychoeducational workshops and webinars, and delivers trainings and community conversations wrapped around a public health approach to suicide prevention locally, nationally and internationally. A Voice at the Table is a corporate member of the Massachusetts Coalition of Suicide Prevention.
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Washington, D.C. (May 14, 2020) – The American Association of Suicidology (AAS) commends the US Senate in passing The National Suicide Prevention Designation Hotline Act. The bill, sponsored by Senators Cory Gardner and Tammy Baldwin, officially designates 988 as the unique, three-digit phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Veterans Crisis Line. AAS has been working closely with other leading suicide prevention and mental health organizations, lawmakers in Congress, and the Federal Communications Commission, to help ensure the bill provides appropriate funding for crisis centers while improving access for those in need of emotional support.
“It has been phenomenal to watch the effort involved with making this legislation happen,” said AAS CEO, Colleen Creighton. “We especially want to thank Senators Gardner and Baldwin for their continued life-saving advocacy for this bill and suicide prevention. We now shift our focus to the House where we heartily encourage them to pass this legislation as well.”
“Crisis centers are excited to see the priority and recognized importance of the work that we have been doing for years to provide vital support to those in our communities that are struggling. Creating a 988 system for behavioral health support is certainly a development that speaks to the needs within our communities across our nation. With this passage of legislation, we have taken only the first steps toward this vision. The importance of funding for this system to be successful cannot be understated. Providing for infrastructure, legitimate compensation and care for the call takers in this system is of immense importance to making a 988 successful in terms of quality and sustainability. We look forward to the challenges that lie ahead as we come together as a national crisis community to build a system of care and support for our neighbors, community and nation.” – Cheri Skelding, VP of Clinical Operations, Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners (AAS Accredited Crisis Center)
In 2018 there were 48,344 suicide deaths in the US, with an age adjusted rate of 14.2 per 100,000 population. In the same year there were nearly 1.2 million suicide attempts.
For the Media: Responsible reporting on suicide, including stories of hope and resilience, can prevent more suicides. Please visit the Suicide Reporting Recommendations for more information.
About AAS: The American Association of Suicidology is the world’s largest membership-based suicide prevention organization. Founded in 1968 by Edwin S. Shneidman, PhD, AAS promotes the research of suicide and its prevention, public awareness programs, public education and training for professionals and volunteers. The membership of AAS includes mental health and public health professionals, researchers, suicide prevention and crisis intervention centers, school districts, crisis center volunteers, survivors of suicide loss, attempt survivors, and a variety of laypersons who have in interest in suicide prevention. You can learn more about AAS at www.suicidology.org.
ER Physician Shares Important Tips for Frontline Workers
Washington, D.C. (May 5, 2020) – In cooperation with the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), Qntfy, an artificial intelligence analytics firm, launched a study looking at the effects of the pandemic on the mental well-being of the public compared to that of healthcare providers. Data on more than 25,000 healthcare professionals and more than 10,000 members of the general population were analyzed using machine learning models for anxiety, depression and suicide risk to develop Qntfy’s patented well-being scores. While the wellbeing of the general population has decreased, the wellbeing of the healthcare providers has decreased even more, which is cause for significant concern.
Qntfy uses its machine learning models to anonymously score social media messages posted by individuals in each category. These data were featured on NBC Nightly News on May 3, 2020.
Tony Wood, Qntfy Co-Founder shared: “These data may seem grim, but thankfully it contains a map of the path forward. Analytics like these can help the helpers, we can flatten the curve of the coming crisis in our behavioral healthcare system if we act now.”
The plot seen below is the average Qntfy well-being score per day for healthcare workers and the general population. Mental health, as it’s measured here, has decreased since the onset of COVID-19 and the associated lockdowns (indicated here by a vertical gray line around March 11th).
“We’re seeing an increasingly obvious toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of frontline healthcare workers,” said Loice Swisher, an emergency room physician in Philadelphia and a member of the American Association of Suicidology. “Just like we need the appropriate supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) for physical health/protections, we need the right kinds of mental health PPE. Like gloves, goggles, or masks, there are multiple different ways one can guard one’s mental health. And like with physical PPE, it is important to have it on and know how to use it before it becomes imminently necessary.”
Dr. Swisher recommends the first part of mental health PPE for all healthcare workers should involve developing a Personal Crisis Management Plan (PCMP). This is a version of a safety plan, which has been well established in suicide prevention crisis intervention services, but adapted with the needs of healthcare professionals in mind. There are also smartphone apps that include these features, like the Virtual Hope Box (Apple, Google).
Secondly, Dr. Swisher suggests healthcare workers who might find themselves at risk for a crisis to develop self-care strategies that focus on the following:
Connectedness – Maintain personal relationships. Identify three people you can call.
Calling or Purpose – Develop a “sunshine file” of great cases, thank you notes, pictures, or anything else that is important to you.
Compassion – Intentionally develop skills of mindfulness and self-compassion. Engage in curiosity, creativity, generosity, thankfulness, and wonder.
Finally, Dr. Swisher recommends these resources from the Council of Residency Directors in Emergency Medicine. Crisis Text Line has also established a program for frontline workers. More resources, as well as a tool to immediately find the closest crisis services can be found at covidmentalhealthsupport.org.
AAS is dedicated to continue working with its partners, members, and subject matter experts to respond to this changing crisis by providing life-saving resources with real outcomes.
For the Media: Responsible reporting on suicide, including stories of hope and resilience, can prevent more suicides. Please visit the Suicide Reporting Recommendations for more information.
About AAS: The American Association of Suicidology is the world’s largest membership-based suicide prevention organization. Founded in 1968 by Edwin S. Shneidman, PhD, AAS promotes the research of suicide and its prevention, public awareness programs, public education and training for professionals and volunteers. The membership of AAS includes mental health and public health professionals, researchers, suicide prevention and crisis intervention centers, school districts, crisis center volunteers, survivors of suicide loss, attempt survivors, and a variety of laypersons who have in interest in suicide prevention. You can learn more about AAS at www.suicidology.org.
About Qntfy: Qntfy is a Boston based AI analytics company. Founded in 2014, Qntfy is dedicated to the intersection of machine learning and behavioral science. As part of their mental health mission, they help university researchers collect and examine social and wearable data from participants who opt-in to the analysis through the OurDataHelps.org project. They also operate a streaming analytics platform called CAP that provides always-on access to insights (like the above) to enterprise, nonprofit, and government customers.
Washington, D.C. (May 1, 2020) – The American Association of Suicidology (AAS) was proud to host AAS20, its 53rd Annual Conference, as a complete and comprehensive virtual experience between April 23 – 25, 2020. Although AAS20 was on-track to be the best attended conference in the organization’s history, the organization canceled the in-person event due to health concerns related to the novel coronavirus pandemic and pivoted to an online event. Despite all this, more than 2800 people registered (1000 more than last year), making this the highest participation for an annual AAS conference, ever. This not only reflects the growing need for international suicide prevention initiatives, but also speaks to the quality of the conference content.
AAS felt a responsibility to uphold its role in providing the largest annual professional convening place for those who have been touched by suicide. Researchers, academicians, public health officials, prevention specialists and many more, were able to join online from across the world to establish effective strategies for addressing the rising suicide rate in this country. This year’s theme, Crossroads: Preventing Suicide and Creating Lives Worth Living, guided the programming, which was built on a framework of equity.
“We had a responsibility to our members and society at large to pivot online. It would have been hypocritical to plan a landmark conference – the first to look at suicidology through an equity lens – and then cancel during a time when people are dying because of long-standing inequities in health care, insurance coverage, and access to food and shelter,” said Jonathan Singer, PhD, President of AAS. “The fact that we were at record numbers for registration, sponsorship and exhibitions reflected the excitement that people were feeling around this theme. We had organized the most racially, ethnically and conceptually diverse group of invited speakers in the conference’s history. These speakers, along with the hundreds of presenters, were perfectly positioned to address equity and suicide prevention, intervention and postvention.
Even within a digital platform, AAS was able to provide one of the most inclusive and diverse lineups ever, with over 100 concurrent sessions and more than 25 speakers and subject matter experts were featured during our plenary and keynote sessions. The members of AAS wholeheartedly embraced the platform, engaging with presenters and content in new and exciting ways with the help of features like Chat and Live Q&A.
“We worked hard to make sure this year’s program focused on inclusivity, equity and giving a voice to those who often get overshadowed or forgotten by this field,” said Colleen Creighton, AAS CEO. “It was imperative that we did everything possible to continue with our conference; we owed it to our members. It was then both heartening and exciting to see our members support the pivot and embrace the virtual format in such a way that we exceeded all expectations and see the largest turnout for any of our conferences in our association’s 50+ year history”.
AAS also announced it will be providing a follow-up AAS20 Academy, which will provide access to all the recorded sessions from throughout the conference to everyone in attendance and anyone who registers post-conference. This will allow unprecedented access to breakout sessions not previously possible with in-person conference experiences. The organization will use this platform to continue adding content from speakers and experts through the Summer and Fall of 2020.
In 2018 there were 48,344 suicide deaths in the US, an age adjusted rate of 14.2 per 100,000 population. In the same year there were nearly 1.2 million suicide attempts.
For the Media: Responsible reporting on suicide, including stories of hope and resilience, can prevent more suicides. Please visit the Suicide Reporting Recommendations for more information.
About AAS: The American Association of Suicidology is the world’s largest membership-based suicide prevention organization. Founded in 1968 by Edwin S. Shneidman, PhD, AAS promotes the research of suicide and its prevention, public awareness programs, public education and training for professionals and volunteers. The membership of AAS includes mental health and public health professionals, researchers, suicide prevention and crisis intervention centers, school districts, crisis center volunteers, survivors of suicide loss, attempt survivors, and a variety of laypersons who have in interest in suicide prevention. You can learn more about AAS at www.suicidology.org.
