New CD-ROM Provides Comprehensive, Interactive Suicide Prevention Guide for Educators

Suicide Rates Among Young People Rise Toward Epidemic Levels

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OAK BROOK, Ill., Feb. 3, 1997 -- A new CD-ROM suicide prevention guide for educators is being distributed this week to nearly 30,000 junior and senior high schools nationwide to help teachers, principals, counselors and coaches deal with what suicide experts call "the silent killer of our youth."

Titled TEAM UP TO SAVE LIVES the CD-ROM, incorporates a three-year research and prevention program funded by Ronald McDonald House Charities. The CD-ROM was developed by a team of psychiatrists, psychologists and health and education experts at the Institute for Juvenile Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). It's designed to help educators and school caregivers learn how to prevent suicide by identifying and assisting young people at risk.

"Our goal is to save lives," said Ken Barun, Ronald McDonald House Charities president and chief executive officer. "We want to reach educators across the country, and help them learn how to reach out to at-risk kids."

Principals at every junior and senior high school in the U.S. will receive one copy of TEAM UP TO SAVE LIVES. Schools can order additional copies by calling McDonald's Educational Resource Center at 1-800-627-7646.

Schools Play a Vital Role

Schools have become "the social agency of first and sometimes last resort for suicidal young people," because they spend so much time there, said Dr. Markus Kruesi, director of UIC's Institute for Juvenile Research. "School nurses and counselors often represent the only mental health care available to kids. The problem is that most educators have no training in how to identify and counsel young people in danger of killing themselves, or how to respond to a suicide at school."

An Adolescent Epidemic

"The rate of completed suicides among U.S. adolescents has quadrupled over the past four decades, to the point where suicide has become a serious public health problem for young people," said Dr. Janet Grossman, a suicide expert with the Institute for Juvenile Research. "It's also a human tragedy, because most suicidal young people desperately want to live. They just can't see alternatives to their problems."

Three Years in the Making

TEAM UP TO SAVE LIVES, the first comprehensive, interactive suicide prevention guide for educators, delivers a curriculum developed and tested by an Institute for Juvenile Research team led by Dr. Grossman, Dr. Kreusi and Dr. Jay Hirsch during a three-year research program conducted with thousands of school caregivers at 155 urban and suburban Chicago-area schools.

The CD-ROM provides a framework which schools can use to build an effective suicide prevention program. It includes:

• Instructional videos which show teachers how to communicate with at-risk young people and their parents

• Detailed lessons on suicide risk factors, warning signs, intervention, means restriction and crisis response.

• Interactive evaluation, which tests users on their knowledge and returns them to lessons for review if questions are answered incorrectly.

The Institute for Juvenile Research, part of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is recognized as the first child guidance clinic in the country. The institute has provided mental health services to children and families for nearly 90 years.

Ronald McDonald House Charities provides comfort and care to children and families through its network of local charities serving in 22 countries. The Charity makes grants to not-for-profit organizations, and provides support to Ronald McDonald Houses worldwide and the Ronald McDonald Children's Hospital. To date, more than $150 million in grants has been awarded to children's programs.

CONTACT: Cathy Mazur of McDonald's, 630-623-3730