• Insurance companies and lawmakers are failing our young people in the context of this problem. Although treatment and medication for mental health concerns associated with suicide have improved, experts say insurance company restrictions have a stranglehold on preventive measures.

• Ninety percent of young people who complete suicide have some form of major psychiatric disorder, although the majority are not taking medication at the time they take their lives.

• Utah does not have a suicide prevention advocacy network or a crisis center, which would be a critical clearinghouse for worried adults and teenagers.

• Local treatment beds for young people who are suicidal have decreased. And there is little, if any, public funding for young people up until the point of absolute crisis.

Research also uncovered some disturbing human behavior that contributes to teen suicide.

It is not known, for example, to what degree high gun ownership in Utah contributes to this issue. What is clear from counselors and psychiatrists though, is that parents are reluctant to remove guns from homes, even when advised how dangerous it is to have firearms around a young person who is depressed, bipolar or suicidal.

And today, in the warming days of April, Utahns should have particular reason for concern:

According to therapists and research, suicide rates are highest in the spring. As child psychiatrist Karen Black says: "We are headed into the manic season."

Already this spring, a Utah girl is forever lost to suicide.

On March 28 — one week after the season officially arrived — Sierra Dawn Woodward, 15, a sophomore at American Fork High School, died in her family's Pleasant Grove back yard.

Sierra and a friend went to her mother's workplace to use a computer that Tuesday afternoon, according to a police report. They left about 4:30 p.m. for home, and Sierra's friend dropped her off just before 5 p.m. The girl called her mother about that time to say she'd arrived home safely and was starting on her math homework.

But Sierra did not start her studies. As near as police can figure, the girl wearing a black hoodie and a baseball cap wrote three notes of apology and good-bye. In large letters she wrote "I'm sorry," on one note her mom found later in the house and "But I love you all" on another.

She text-messaged three friends with a simple, "I love you."

At some point she got her father's loaded .44 Smith and Wesson handgun from a cabinet in his headboard. Her dad told police later he didn't think Sierra had ever fired the gun or that she knew where it was stored.