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Panel to address teen mental health, suicide

Goshen News - 5/5/2022

May 5—GOSHEN — Leslie Weirich of Leslie's Hope is inviting the community to join her and a panel of mental health professionals as they explore suicide prevention as parents, teachers and leaders of area youth.

The panel will take place at the Life Center, Life Center 1212 W. Plymouth Ave., Goshen, at 6:30 p.m. Monday.

Weirich, a suicide prevention specialist with Oaklawn Community Mental Health, knows all too well the effects of hidden struggles with mental health that teens and young adults face, and the possible effects if they don't receive support.

Every eight hours, someone in the state of Indiana dies by suicide. That's 90 suicides per month in the state of Indiana alone.

"I'm not a perfect mom and I'm not a perfect parent," Weirich said. "I'm just trying to help so that my story doesn't become someone else's story."

On Sept. 10, 2016, World Suicide Prevention Day, Weirich's own son Austin killed himself. Austin's story made national news because he'd played football prior to his junior year at Wabash College and, two years after his death, on the same day, the team's co-captain, Evan Hansen, also died by suicide.

The tragedy catapulted Weirich's family trauma onto a national audience and soon after, she began getting requests to speak and launched Leslie's Hope, partnering with community leaders to set up school suicide prevention programs, providing keynotes, and speaking to schools around the country on suicide awareness and prevention.

"As we've been working with these students in these schools, we realize there's such a need to work with the parents, too," she explained. "Kids are more stressed-out than ever with higher rates of anxiety, higher rates of depression. Parents are always asking me, 'How do I talk to my teen? How do I talk to them about suicide?'

During the Monday night panel discussion, Weirich will host a question-and-answer session for parents, grandparents, teachers, coaches, guidance counselors, youth pastors, and anyone interested in learning more about the mental health of adolescents and teens, discussing practical tips and tools that adults can use to help the youth in their lives.

By her side at the Monday night panel will be three regional experts on suicide prevention: Tim Lagro, a teen counselor with Crosswinds Counseling; Heather Glenn, Oaklawn therapist; and Gina Courtois, program director for School Care Team, a nonprofit that teaches social and emotional wellbeing in Fort Wayne area schools.

They'll talk about myths and fallacies related to suicide and mental health, provide resources and practical tools for adults to better understand the teenage brain, and introduce parents and adult mentors to the work that's being done in schools in the area, specially Goshen community Schools, Mishawaka Community Schools, and John Young Middle School right now, but Weirich has hopes to bring the program to as many as six local middle schools and high schools in the region this fall. The program focuses on what Weirich calls an "upstream" approach.

"We don't want to wait until these people are ready to jump off the bridge," she said. "We want to start early, teaching them healthy ways to cope with stress. We believe, when you teach wellness, you prevent bullying, you prevent school violence and you prevent suicide."

The program does this, in part, using a method of eight protective factors, which are: family support, positive friends, mentors, healthy activities, generosity, spirituality, physical health and mental health.

"I really want parents to come out on Monday and bring their questions," Weirich urged. "If you have kids, you're going to have struggles, so let's all share resources and share information and get the right information to help."

For more information on Weirich's program, visit www.leslieshope.org.

Dani Messick is the education and entertainment reporter for The Goshen News. She can be reached at dani.messick@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2065.

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