Bullying and Suicide

In the United States there has been an increase of suicide due to bullying in schools. Families are being greatly affected because of this situation and it must stop. School is the major place where this is occurring. Many students come to their homes upset because of how they are being treated at school. The only ones that could be trained to help are teachers. Teachers need to be more involved with their students. Faculty and staff members need to target signs of bullying and target signs of suicide in the students. The problem here is that teachers need to be trained and a specific way to stop suicide and bullying. The state will have to help fund these kinds of trainings for each school district in New Jersey. According to the NJTV news the report identifies where the highest rates of suicide exist throughout the state. The Skyland region in rural northwest New Jersey has the highest rate of youth suicide at 7.5 per 100,000 persons. And while rates are declining for older teens, they're increasing for the younger, more than doubled, according to the CDCP, with teen boys twice as likely to die by suicide as teen girls. This is a prove that more training must be down by faculty and staff. Also, according to AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, each year 44,965 Americans die by suicide, for every suicide there are twenty-five attempts, and suicide costa the United States sixty-nine billion dollars annually.

The question is: what is causing suicide? Doing some research two article about why teens suicide themselves caught my attention. To start off with I would like to focus on the article written by Kathleen D. Hokans and David Lester Motives for Suicide in Adolescents: A Preliminary Study. These two authors believe that the reason why adolescents suicide themselves is because of social isolations from their families. There is a difference in sex more boys than girls kill themselves according to Hokans and Lester nine themes were rated by one judge who was unaware that age and sex diffrences were to be examined: (1) internalized anger, (2) externalized anger, (3) ambiguous anger, (4) general hopelessness, (5) specific hopelessness plus cognitive constriction, (6) social isolation unspecified, (7) social isolation from family, (8) social isolation from peers, and (9) somatic complaints. According to this information that has been collected we could focus on a certain age of adolescents that need the most attention that could be from middle school to high school students.

A show in Netflix named 13 reasons Why has caught a lot of attention to parents, teachers, and many others. This show gives reasons why students suicide themselves. According to What '13 Reasons Why' lacks: parenting states that Hannah, the protagonist of the show, takes her life and leaves behind 13 audiotapes that describe how peers and school officials failed her and were ultimately responsible for her suicide. Her parents are blindsided and spend the first season trying to decipher her motives. They had little insight into her struggles, and via flashbacks, we see myriad misplaced sentiments and missed opportunities for discussion.

It has been said by NJTV news that teachers have been trained and that there are free online training for school teachers and school staff, said Dawn Doherty. We've had over 200,000 educators across the country complete this. For youth we do have our Youth Council which is an interactive group that meets during the school year. To be honest I think there must be more done and not just for the teachers but for the faculty member and staff that are involved day to day with these students.

My proposal is for staff members and faculty that are mostly involved with the students for example: (security officers that interact with the students, nurses, secretaries, custodians, lunch aids, teachers, assistant teachers and volunteers at the schools) receive training every 3 months to refresh information that will help them target suicide and bullying. This will reduce the chances of students wanting to hurt themselves or others. My project will be funded by every school board. This meeting every three months will be an hour and a half long. We will only need about one hundred dollars for any refreshments at the meeting. Faculty and staff members will right any of the target signs which are change in behavior, talking a lot about death, threats said by any students, and always feeling tired in class. These signs will be reported by the staff or faculty that has witnessed this behavior and will give the report to the councilor.

After the report has been received by the councilor he/she will contact his or her guardian and will meet with them if it's becoming a habit for that student. When the mother or father of that student meets with the councilor he or she will show the report in front of the child and seek help and ask the reason for the change in behavior, talking about death or killing him/herself, and sleeping in class. This is the only way that the guardian and the councilor will determine if the student needs to seek professional help. When it comes to bullying the faculty or staff member will report the student who is doing the bullying as well. The teacher or staff member who is a witness must report also who the bullying was made to, to make sure that student is not affected.

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