Jan Ulrich is on the front lines of suicide prevention in Kentucky. She is the State Suicide Prevention Coordinator and works to connect schools with suicide prevention programming through the latest grants, legislation and her own determination. For Ulrich, suicide prevention is personal: in 2002, Ulrich’s son, Nathan Eisert, died by suicide. Eisert was 20 years old.
“I believed my children were immune,” says Ulrich. “I never thought my own child was at risk [for suicide]. If we had known the warning signs we would have at least had a chance to save him and get him help. I very much believe that if we knew then what we know now, he would be alive today.”
Ulrich’s suicide prevention work began just two weeks after losing her son. She attended a conference with other suicide survivors and the group began to form a suicide prevention plan in Kentucky. The team spoke with state lawmakers, eventually convincing them to vote for the Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) Youth Suicide Prevention Grant.
“Our group of survivors was working through a lot of grief, but through that we realized we could have a big impact,” says Ulrich. “A legislative aide told me the reason one senator voted for GLS was because of our personal testimony and what we had to say. We realized our small voices were having an impact.”
The group of survivors formed the Kentucky Suicide Prevention Group, and in 2007 Ulrich began working in the Kentucky Department of Behavioral Health. Her team focused on providing school-based suicide prevention and postvention materials to high schools and middle schools across the state. “We were asked to come to a small school district that had lost four boys to suicide between January and May,” says Ulrich. “We wanted to make sure whatever we did was safe and effective and it was very important that we use evidence-based programs and practices. We consulted with national experts around postvention and decided to provide that school district with the SOS Signs of Suicide Prevention Program. That school district had felt hopeless until the SOS program.”
The Kentucky Suicide Prevention Group also tackled legislation, and was successful in getting a law passed in 2010 that required suicide training for all middle and high school teachers as well as suicide prevention education for all students. “For schools that have not lost a student to suicide, it’s sometimes more challenging to get them to implement suicide prevention programming,” says Ulrich. “We know they need it, but unless they’ve had a death, suicide prevention is low on the totem pole.”
To help convince schools to adopt the SOS Signs of Suicide Prevention Program, Ulrich employed the assistance of school principals who had lost a student to suicide. “Through the GLS grant, we made a video to capture the stories of these principals who had losses and we use that video to help spread our message,” says Ulrich. “That video went a long way to getting the Kentucky Department of Education on board. They began to see suicide prevention from a legal perspective and not just a personal issue.”
According to Ulrich, many schools are surprised by the number of students who ask for help after the SOS screening. “Schools have come back to say that they’ve had kids that they had to take immediate action on, kids with plans and a date. Without the SOS program, those kids would have been lost.”
The work of the Kentucky Suicide Prevention Group and the Behavioral Health Department is having positive effects on Kentucky schools, laws and residents. Ulrich says losing her son inspires her to work harder. “I don’t see stop signs. If there is a wall, I’m going to go around it or over it because I know all too well what happens when we fail in this.”