Students and members of the Suffolk Public Schools community coming together Saturday to learn more and speak about suicide prevention and awareness at the 9th annual Shatter the Silence Suicide Awareness program at King’s Fork High School.
Along with appearances from Suffolk dignitaries, the event featured life-experienced speakers and a teen youth panel discussing better ways to talk about and deal with mental health and suicide among family members and friends. WTCSB Prevention Supervisor Charlene Cutting shared statistics during the program.
“So every 40 seconds, somebody dies by suicide. It’s the 11th leading cause of death in Virginia. And in Virginia, it’s the second cause of death for 10 to 14-year-olds. As of Sept. 3, 2024, 756 people died by suicide [in Virginia],” Cutting said. “So within my prevention department and Western Tidewater CSB, every initiative, every campaign, every activity that we do, is ultimately designed with one goal in mind, and that’s to reduce those numbers. We know that the worst outcome from all mental health challenges, addictions, unresolved trauma, grief is suicide. It’s why we say ‘prevention first.’”