By Russell Page
Jane Willie decided the suicide problem at East High School needed to stop.
“East High was having a suicide every year for 12 years,” said Willie, former East High Parent Teacher Association President.
Willie, who is now the school education coordinator for the Utah chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, started “Hope for Tomorrow: Health Education Program for Schools,” at East High in 1999 to help combat mental health disorders within the suicide-ridden school.
Schools in Alpine and Nebo school districts are interested in the program, but Willie said no Utah County schools currently participate. Hope for Tomorrow is in junior high and high schools in other parts of Utah, including Salt Lake and Summit Counties.
Willie said Hope for Tomorrow seeks to educate mood, eating, and drug abuse disorders within the schools. “It”s a year-long mental health education program,” Willie said.
Olympus High Principal Paul Hansen had two students commit suicide at his school in 2000. Hansen said he approached one boy the last day before winter vacation began because other students mentioned he was acting strange.
Hansen said he felt he needed to get to know the boy”s parents, so he called them saying he wanted to meet with them. The boy committed suicide on New Year”s Eve that year.
The first day back from winter vacation, Hansen said the boy”s father came to his office minutes after he had read the boy”s obituary in the paper and cried.
“That was the second time I had held a dad with a broken heart,” Hansen said. “The loss of a child is tragic thing,” he said. “I have wept myself.”
Hansen had heard about Hope for Tomorrow from a friend at East High. Hansen said he now has over 60 volunteers come into his in-class assemblies to help facilitate educate his students about mood disorders.
“As far as public schools go, parents share with us the most important things they have,” Hansen said. “They share their kids with us for the majority of their waking hours. They have a right to expect that the schools participate in a partnership.”
East High Principal Harold Trussel said his students seem to enjoy Hope for Tomorrow. He said the program has recently held an in-class alcohol-education assembly.
“I have enjoyed having them come in because graduation is coming up and for these students to all get this right now may very well save lives,” Trussel said. “It is very timely.”
John Jaussi, school counselor for North Summit High School, said students generally show signs of suicidal tendencies.
“What you really look for is if they have a plan,” Jaussi said. “If they are serious, they have a plan.” Jaussi said some students are just impulsive.
Trussel said because his school is so close to medical centers like the University of Utah, it is able to often have medical doctors and professionals speak to his students.
Willie said people don”t generally like to talk about mental-health disorders because they feel that they are not supposed to have those problems.
“My hope is to save lives really – bottom line,” Willie said. “The main thing is educating and creating awareness. Through the education process, we hope to save lives.”
Willie said when the program is taken to interested schools, it is placed through the PTA the PTA is already in the schools.
The year-long program is instituted in Utah-area schools every other year and helps educate teachers, parents and students to recognize the signs of these diseases. “It”s a community thing,” Willie said.
