ACT® Technique Helps Students Recognize They’re Not Alone
Being a teenager is hard. Add on the stress of having a deployed parent and it can be harder.
Since 2001, 900,000 kids have had a parent deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan and 25% of those kids are between the ages of 12-18, according to a study published in the Journal of Development & Behavioral Pediatrics. The study lists changes in routine, parental stress and worries about the service member as challenges that can affect a child’s mental health.
Realizing many teens may be navigating through these and other challenges, Military Pathway’s is providing the SOS Signs of Suicide® Program FREE to Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and military impacted schools. The SOS program uses a peer-to-peer model that teaches students to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression and suicide in themselves or a friend and encourages help-seeking through the use of the ACT (Acknowledge, Care, Tell) technique. The goal of the program is to connect at-risk students to a trusted adult, teacher or counselor for the support they need to ensure their safety.
“The ACT model has transferred to so many topics including self-injury, dating violence, addiction etc. Our students remember this year-to-year and have used it to get help for their friends in need. We have intercepted several suicide attempts thanks to the ACT model as well as from the result of the self-reporting model,” says Danielle Cooper, a health and wellness teacher in Weston, MA who has been implementing the program since 2005.
The main teaching tool of the SOS program is the Friends for Life: Preventing Teen Suicide DVD. Through a series of vignettes and real life stories, teens learn the signs and symptoms of depression and suicide and how to get help for themselves or a friend.
Summer Anderson is one of the teenagers featured in the DVD. In the video she describes how with the encouragement and support of her Marine Colonel father and friends she was able to get help for her depression and substance abuse problem.
“I thought that maybe telling my story would help other teenagers going through the same thing,” says Summer. “I hope (teens) realize no matter what you go through, you’re never too far gone to get help and change and get better. The situation is never too bad to give up on.”
The SOS program is the only school-based suicide prevention program included on SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices that addresses knowledge and attitudes about suicide and depression, while reducing suicide attempts. It is available FREE to both DoDEA and military impacted schools (schools with a military population of 20% or higher). Click here to visit our website and register for the FREE 2011 SOS Program.