ROCK SPRINGS – A public event aiming to help people who have lost loved ones to suicide is scheduled for Saturday at the Broadway Theater.
The International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day starts at 11 a.m., beginning with a lunch in the theater’s lobby. A screening of “Family Journeys: Healing and Hope after a Suicide” will take place at 11:40 p.m. after an introduction by April Thompson, a Rock Springs city employee who lost her son to suicide. A discussion of the film and the future of suicide prevention will take place after the film, followed by a resource fair and an invitation to submit squares for a planned memory quilt.
The memory quilt will feature squares memorializing victims of suicide or honoring a survivor of suicide that will be sewn together and continually be added to. The quilt would serve to highlight the fact suicide is an ongoing problem and prevention efforts are always needed.
The event is the fourth survivor’s day hosted by the Sweetwater County Prevention Coalition, a federally-funded group that works to highlight and prevent forms of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as suicide. According to Shae Haney, the prevention coordinator for the coalition, the group does a lot of work in suicide prevention because many of its members have been impacted by suicide. Haney hopes the event will bring residents out to see there are resources and support available to those who have lost someone to suicide.
The coalition has had some successes recently. Haney said they’ve had 639 residents undergo suicide prevention training since 2023 and 437 Sweetwater County School District No. 1 employees trained in QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) suicide prevention training in the past three months. She said four school district staff have received QPR trainer education and there is a push to have the district’s high school students receive QPR training as well. While Haney admits they don’t always get large numbers during the coalition’s monthly QPR training sessions, at least one coalition member has noticed trainings attracting people who have recently lost a loved one to suicide.
“A lot of people showing up to QPR trainings are fresh in their loss,” Coalition Member Danielle Rushing said.
Rushing said the last large-scale QPR training that took place attracted people who had lost someone to suicide in the prior three or four years.
Haney said something the coalition is looking to include in their prevention efforts is suicide fatality reviews, which would look into possible reasons that resulted in a person’s death by suicide. Haney said the county coroner’s office and Mayor Max Mickelson are interested in the reviews, as well as the data the reviews could provide for prevention efforts. Thompson, also a member of the coalition, believes people will be shocked with what those reviews could reveal.
“I think it’s going to be eye opening in that it’s not going to be one thing we can fix,” Thompson said.
