So its clear that we need something to change in all schools. I learned of another life lost to suicide at SM South in 2012, yet nothing changed. Please read this story below. This mother has the same idea as Karen Arkin and I do about making changes in schools and breaking the stigma around mental illness..any lose of life is not ok...We must make a change in the schools. Read this article maybe it will give you some ideas that you can share with me....or maybe we can find 30 students and parents to march with me to make a change in the schools. March of the Penguins!!!
http://www.foxsports.com/other/story/university-of-pennsylvania-track-tim-hamlett-suicide-prevention-month-092315
In January 2014, the middle of Hamlett's sophomore year, teammate Madison Holleran died by suicide. A dark cloud hung over Penn's track program. Hamlett and his friends ran a race in her honor.
In retrospect, the Hamletts feel there were gaps in communication between the university and parents regarding mental health in the wake of Holleran's death. They say neither the track team nor the athletic department broke the news to parents of the team. Ron Ozio, Penn's director of media relations, said in a statement the university followed protocol.
"When a student dies, administrators work to coordinate an official university response," the statement said. "Great care is taken to identify and notify friends and other members of the campus community who may be impacted by the student's passing."
On campus, there was no lack of awareness about Holleran's death. It was inescapable for Hamlett and the rest of the track team. Hamlett's photo was even used as the cover image for a campus newspaper article about Holleran's suicide. Shortly thereafter, ESPN, People, Huffington Post, and other national media flocked to the story.
The Hamlett family, though, says it didn't get any notice about Holleran, or any resources to educate in suicide prevention. "At the time, Tim was one of the students who was still alive," Katherine says. She feels there could have been a way to save her son with more information.
The effect Holleran's death had on Hamlett is inconclusive, but as the team mourned, his mental health deteriorated.
His teammates suspected something was wrong.
"A big moment for me was when I caught him on the bridge on campus," said Webster. "I said I hadn't seen him for a while, and he kind of responded, 'Yeah, I'll catch you later,' and that just wasn't Tim. He was always like, 'Let's go to dinner. Let's play Madden right now.' He would drop everything and say, 'Let's go.'"
Hamlett's parents, meanwhile, were not immediately aware of the change in their son, but were tipped off at the end of his sophomore year. As they moved Hamlett out of his dorm room, his teammates hinted that Tim had been gone from his normal activities. He and his wife hoped it would be a phase. They trusted the coaches around their son were taking good care of him.
In September 2014, shortly after Hamlett returned to Penn for his junior year, his parents say his roommate raised serious concerns over his behavior. It was then the Hamlett family also learned their son had been removed from the track team because he was missing practices and was no longer in competitive shape.
That day, the Hamlett family made arrangements to pull their son out of school and take a leave of absence. While his parents carefully evaluated their medical options, Hamlett took a turn for the worse. They observed an alarming change in their son's personality.
"He was looping," Archibald Hamlett remembers. "He would say the same things to me over again. I would walk past his room and he would be listening to a song, and then I'd come back 10 minutes later and I'd ask him, 'Are you still listening to the same song?'"
Over the ensuing months before his disappearance, Tim spent most of his time locked in his room. He avoided talking to his parents even when conversation naturally presented itself. He became isolated from the outside world.
Then, suddenly, on the day after Christmas, Tim Hamlett left home and never returned.
* * * * *
Upon hearing about Hamlett's death, Penn officials called his parents with an offer to hold a candlelight vigil for their son on campus. Though the Hamlett family appreciated the gesture, by then they had shifted their focus from bereavement to action.
Thus, the Hamlett family has worked with undergraduates to champion the Hamlett-Reed Initiative -- a sweeping proposal of university policy changes named after Tim Hamlett and Theodric Reed, another Penn student who died by suicide in August 2014. The proposal was hand-delivered to Penn President Dr. Amy Gutmann by a march of 30 students on Sept. 10.
"Penn is a great institution, but it needs to focus on the loss of life," Katherine says. "We want to make sure this never happens to another family again."
The document calls for sharper focus on high-risk groups like student-athletes, increased access to counselors, greater anonymity, proactive outreach to students, input from third-party experts, as well an all-inclusive mental health orientation for students and parents. The ambitious initiative also stipulates aggressive deadlines as soon as Oct. 1.
"We don't want to nibble. We want to bite," Katherine says.
The university has responded quickly. On Sept. 18, Penn administrators met with student leaders to negotiate the terms of the Hamlett-Reed Initiative. While the policymakers did not commit to the initiative as a whole, they agreed to follow up in the coming months.
Dr. Rostain agrees with the spirit of efforts like the Hamlett-Reed Initiative while also tempering expectations. "Seven out of 100,000 will kill themselves among college students," he says. "That's a sad statistic. Penn, because of the size of its community, it's predictable this will happen. To try to suggest otherwise is to foster a myth."
Dr. Rostain's views reflect the pragmatic realities facing mental health professionals. He believes the goal of suicide prevention efforts should be to understand risk factors instead of playing a zero sum game.
Penn has tried to address the issue in its own ways. The school announced a partnership with the Jed Clinton Health Matters program and formed the Task Force on Student Psychological Health and Welfare, appointing Dr. Rostain as co-chair. The task force's eight-page report made little to no mention of student-athletes as an at-risk group.
"We didn't identify it as a specific need," Dr. Rostain says.
Time will tell if either the Hamlett-Reed Initiative or Penn's institutional efforts will improve the situation on campus, but Dr. Rostain cautions that combatting the issue can be difficult.
"It's very hard to know sometimes," he says. "People don't want others to know how close to killing themselves they are, so that's the part of the human dimension policies or institutions can't really do anything about."
The Hamletts echo the difficulty in recognizing the warning signs.
"We never thought it would have happened to us," Katherine says. "My son was my oxygen, who elevated me to a whole other dimension of what it means to be alive.
"He's still my oxygen, but these days it's harder to breathe."
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