Grant aids 'true suicide prevention'

Brandon Fox isn't a bad kid, but after some run-ins with the law and fights at school, his mother was at her wits' end.

The trouble started when the boy's father died five years ago of liver cancer. He'd been close to his grandmother, too, but she moved to Louisiana. He had other teenage travails, like the fighting, and seemed alternately sad and angry. Brandon's mother, Diane Fox, could feel her middle son slipping away.

The teenager started spending every minute in his room. His mother tried to keep the door open. "I didn't want him secluded. I was worried about him hurting himself."

A pilot program directed at suicide prevention came along at just the right time. And last week, the same program — which will allow state officials to intervene in many more cases like Fox's — was funded through a federal grant.

In the minds of youth suicide experts in Utah, this is where suicide prevention starts.

The red flag — and precursor for suicide in a teenager — may be something seemingly unrelated to suicidal thoughts, explains Michelle Moskos, an expert in teen suicide.

The teen might have committed a "minor offense," such as truancy or substance abuse.

Which is why suicide prevention should start before a young person considers taking his own life. "If you are talking death or dying, you are already in crisis," Moskos explains.

So suicide prevention must start much earlier, experts say, at the point where an adolescent first shows signs of trouble. Many young people enter the juvenile court system with so-called "minor offenses."

But research shows the risk for suicide increases significantly after a child has eight or more offenses, so the commitment is to get to young people earlier.

The grant allows officials to divert a teenager into the program after the first or second offense — maybe toilet-papering a house or growing pot in the basement, Moskos uses as examples. "A parent might consider these typical teenage behaviors, and it's our job to make sure that they are typical teenage behaviors or to determine what help the family needs."

The grant will provide 200 young people in Utah's juvenile justice system with a psychological evaluation and ongoing care, and in-home guidance for another 40 children and teens.

The grant is the first large-scale suicide prevention effort in Utah supported by the federal government. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded the suicide prevention funds to the Intermountain Injury Control Research Center, which will bring coordinated mental health services to adolescents in the juvenile justice probation system for three years.