Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

EQ: What are the primary factors to consider when approaching someone who may be experiencing suicidal ideation?

Answer 1: Before approaching an individual you think may be suicidal,  it is essential to first be able to identify the risk factors and warning sigs that the individual is experiencing in order to pick upon telltale signs.

Answer 2: After identifying the major risk factors, warning signs and risk level, it is necessary to learn the appropriate body and verbal language to appropriately convey our message of concern.

Answer 3: As one begin to help someone recover from suicidal ideation, it is crucial to identify appropriate social support for the person at risk, and the helper.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
I believe that my best answer is my third answer because it is the one that is forgotten the most when it comes to helping another person. People tend to forget that the situation is stressful to be involved in, and often times the “helper” is unaware that it is necessary for them to have their own support, just as much as it is for the person at risk to have them as well. In addition to this, support systems (i.e. online chats, hotlines, support groups, individual therapy, etc.) play a big part in the recover of the person at risk, because they create a social movement to help an individual, have it be familial or strangers.

This answer was first inspired when i did my third interview with Lizette Martinez from the Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center. When has entered the discussion on the importance of support systems when the topic of support group and therapy effectiveness for those who are suicidal and the steps to ensure the best results when approaching and individual. After this initial discussion, I continued and began to look into different issues and benefits from different forms of social support including: individual therapy, support groups, online chats, hotlines, and family relationships, all as different mediums for which people could use as social support.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?
Throughout the course of the year, the biggest problem that I faced as in the beginning stage of the project because several groups that I has tried to interview or mentor with did not find it appropriate for me to take part in me mentoring because of my age, which also made interviews difficult initially. By being rejected during my initial attempts, I was able to see the stigma against suicide first hand, which demonstrated how even those involved with suicide prevention failed to set aside the idea that death can play a part of suicide prevention. For this, all that is took was more motivation to find people who were willing to help me grow on my knowledge so I could uphold the best result.  

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
My most significant sources would be my third interview and my course on The Suicide Prevention and Intervention course provided by Wild Iris Education meant to educate nurses in the work field to face suicidal patients. The Wild Iris course, provided me with a professional touch to suicide prevention by addressing how to identify suicide within those who are at risk within the medical community. My third interview played as a gateway throughout my entire project and motivated me to continue looking into social support as a potential answer to my topic.

Blog 22" Independent Component 2

(a) “I,  Jocelyn  Sanchez, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30  hours of work.”

(b) Sources

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D_25XELuHqZWXHeRHetaJpfUH2EYQxOv3wko3B5CvOo/edit?usp=sharing

(c) Throughout the course of these last several months, Katie Lopez and myself set off to create an online campaign in order to help create awareness among teenagers, in order to do so we created a suicide prevention website such as the one by the Trevor Project, Teen Line Online and the Suicide Prevention Association. However as I looked into these websites, I noticed that they did not provide enough information to create a motivational support system or even had a forum for recommended aid, such as therapy, chat lines, support groups or even the effectiveness of these forums for individuals. In order to ensure that there was one, we created a “super” website which included all of this information, which can also be found on the link below, as posting is pending on  a blog schedule as set by my partner, Katie. While i focused on the research and background of the website, Katie focused on the aesthetic and importance of different mediums to complete our IC.  

Link to Information: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PeatOL0uKPrOcoZlxGrxgXlPyoNxLw799L2spGtYRjs/edit?usp=sharing

(d) How did the component help you answer your EQ? Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped.

While creating this website I began to see the flaws in the current suicide prevention campaigns where they focus on one aspect, such as online chats or in person contact and often do not provide enough information to help an individual. Although some websites do provide steps, there is yet to we a site aside from our own that encompasses the topics of each on of these aspects. With having all the information needed on one forum, helping another person will be a simpler task than as presented before. Since I was responsible for research, I was able to first hand see the time the is necessary to put all of these forums in one place. It takes a lot of time, but with motivation it is worth saving lives.  

Link to Website: http://keepaimingcampaign.wix.com/suicideprevention

Blog 21: Fourth Interview Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

The most important aspect that I learned from this interview with Patricia Janice Overley has been the ever growing necessity of support through the process of suicide and the effort needed to come back, after a loved one passed by suicide. Now more than ever it is necessary to be able to understand how the suicide of a close relative or friend can take a toll on an individual, and seeking help in a support group is one way of getting the emotional and social support, especially when everyone has had similar experiences and can relate to one another. Without any stigma, people can share their experiences with complete strangers but create a bond and a support system that can help different individuals evolve and move forward if that is the case.

2.  How will what I learned affect my final lesson?

This interview has allowed me to focus on my third answer which is finding support for yourself and for the person who is at risk. Overall Ms. Overley was able to explain the importance of suicide prevention through support, a tool often forgotten in the time of help. Suicide prevention is more than taking someone to the proper psychologist, but about knowing the proper support and help that an individual may need. For some people, a support group works effectively, for others a one on one meeting will be sufficient, however for some both of these are necessary, and depending on the age group, even online chats can become appropriate.

Fourth Interview Questions

Even when life seems dark and nothing seems to be in order, hope will illuminate the way. 

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

For this interview I plan on interviewing Patricia Janice Overley, M.S. who is a support group leader for the Hope After Suicide Group in Chino Hills who meet bimonthly to provide support for families who have had relatives or friends through suicide.

2.  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

1. What is a support group?
1. how does a support group work?
2. Why do people seek out assistance in this form?
3. What is the benefit of a support group over traditional individual therapy or other forms of help?
4. When a relative or friend of someone who went through with suicide, what is the first step they would have to take?
5. What is Hope After Suicide?
6. How did it come to be? How did you come to lead this group?
7. Why is it important to have support?
8. Most people who seek help in a support group have little to no prior relations before joining this group, what would you say is an essential part in creating the trust that each person needs?
9. In your years of experience, how would you explain the general process of recovery for each individual?
10. Why is it important to seek help after a close relative or friend dies through suicide?
11. Should an individual who is trying to help a suicidal individual seek personal help during the beginning of helping their friend or when?
12. Does seeking personal support make anyone less inclined to follow through with suicidal thoughts?
13. What are the risks of not seeking support after someone close completes suicide?
14. If someone did not go through with suicide, what would you recommend for steps to take?
15. Should there be a restriction to when an individual should be able to learn about the risk of suicide?
1. If so, how old should they be?
16. Do you recommend support groups to children?
17. What do you believe are the primary factors to consider when approaching someone considering suicide?
18. What has been the most rewarding experience for you when regarding HOPE after suicide?
19. What is your background in suicide prevention, or in psychology?
20. Would you recommend any resources for me to look more into support as a tool for suicide prevention?

Blog 19: Third Answer

1. EQ

What are the primary factors to consider when approaching someone who may be experiencing suicidal ideation?

2. Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*

Among the biggest factors in approaching someone, is having the proper support for yourself and the person who are helping.

3. 3 details to support the answer

Having the proper emotional support as the helper will ensure that the person who are trying to move away from suicidal tendencies. According to the American Psychological Association, social support is a crucial factor in how one will respond to social situations. That is without saying, how one will use the opinions and resources another provides to help them be a stronger individual.

During the period of approach and assistance, the individual at risk is very delicate and requires constant communication, this having their own support, as in a therapist, friend, relative, support group of even hotline to talk to will provide sufficient support until they see their main support next.

4. The research source(s) to support your details and answer

Source 17

Interview 3

Source 48f

5. Concluding Sentence

Support plays a major factor in the interpretation and development of how one progresses from suicidal ideation.

Blog 18: Answer 2

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Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection

Life, anyone’s life for that matter is worth fighting for, and even if the best outcome is not the biggest, it is not the most useful.

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

The most important thing I learned from my mentor is the best outcome from approaching anyone who is suicidal, is not that they pledge to never commit suicide but in fact helping that person step down from their immediate urge and provide them with hope to continue wanting to make a difference in their own lives regardless. At the moment you talk to someone and address suicide, all of the attention is on that person, and that person only, it is their moment to be heard and have support and if anyone is able to listen and provide them with the time and proper encouragement they can at least provide a glimmer of hope. A small glimmer can grow and expand to completely modify the life path they are choosing for themselves. Instead of ending their life, they allow themselves to see past that to a world where their issues have solutions. It was being able to understand how the best outcome of approach does not have to be a complete elimination of the entire problem in one sitting, but in reality it is just pushing for one more day of life.

                                                                                                                                                          

2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

Overall my approach to my interviews has changed drastically from my first one to this one, particularly because I hid behind my mentor for the first two. Although I was able to get a constructive amount of information throughout my first two interviews, it was this third interview that provided me with a different perspective on helping those who need it. Lizette Martinez, the Volunteer Coordinator at the Didi Hirsch Suicide Prevention Center in Culver City was very open to her experience in suicide prevention and on her background as a volunteer for over 4 years. I was able to get to know Ms. Martinez just by a conversation and was able to find her muse through wanting to help others by preventing suicide - the most preventable form of death. Her current passion has allowed me to have a deeper understanding of why people help each other, and most importantly, has allowed me to branch for ideas for my second independent component which has been to create a campaign to create suicide prevention awareness.