Campus Resilience Index poster — click to view PDF
Research & Evaluation Manager Gesine Ziebarth and Board President Anne Kelly attended the 55th annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology held April 27-30 in Chicago. This conference brings together multiple sectors, such as crisis services providers, researchers, and survivors, focused on the common goal of preventing suicide and saving lives.
Gesine presented a poster on the Campus Resilience Index that she developed together with Education & Advocacy Manager Courtney Young.
Anne presented the talk “Supporting Suicide Loss Survivors through Meaning Making as a Function of Psychological Autopsy” together with loss survivors Mary Ellen Wolfe and Catherine McBennett, who started the Niamh Louise Foundation in Northern Ireland. They also managed to have some after-hours fun.
Lost&Found Board President Anne Kelly presented the talk “Supporting Suicide Loss Survivors through Meaning Making as a Function of Psychological Autopsy” together with loss survivors Mary Ellen Wolfe and Catherine McBennett.
The group also managed to have some after-hours fun.
Suicides in South Dakota increased to a record level last year, according to provisional data released by the South Dakota Department of Health in April.
In 2021, 198 South Dakotans died by suicide. This is higher than in 2019 and 2020, which each had 185 suicides, and is the highest ever recorded in the state.
Provisional Suicide Data, South Dakota (2020-2021)
The finalized death data from 2020 show several significant problems for South Dakota:
South Dakota had the 8th highest suicide rate in the United States in 2020.
Four South Dakota counties rank in the top 1% highest suicide rates in the U.S. (2010-2019).
American Indian suicide rates are 2.5 times higher than White race rates in South Dakota (2011-2020).
In 2020, suicide was the leading cause of death among those ages 10-19 and the second-leading cause of death among those ages 20-29.
“The particularly strong impact on youth and young adults is concerning for the future of our state,” said Erik Muckey, CEO and Executive Director of Lost&Found.
Pandemic-related increase
The timing of the increase—with more suicides in the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021—suggest that the increase is at least in part related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While we continue to analyze underlying factors for this record, we know that the pandemic impeded many of the protective factors against suicide while increasing certain risk factors for suicide,” Muckey said.
These are some of the protective factors that prevent suicide that were affected by the pandemic:
Access to mental health care – Many people who had been seeing a mental health professional were not able to continue that care in person when social distancing was practiced. (Meeting through video conferencing allowed care to continue in many cases.)
Connectedness to others – Social distancing made connecting with others more difficult. Connecting through technology helped but wasn’t quite the same and left out people without access to or knowledge of that technology.
Sense of purpose in life – Layoffs and school closings may have diminished the sense of purpose for some people.
Talking about mental health – Mental health concerns may have been more difficult to discuss when not face to face with another person.
The pandemic also increased some of the risk factors that increase the risk of suicide:
Substance use disorders – For those struggling with a substance use disorder, staying home more often when work and other places were closed may have increased substance use.
Family dysfunction – People who otherwise might have left home for work or school were less likely to do so during the pandemic, which may have exacerbated fraught family dynamics.
Endured prolonged stress or a traumatic event – Because of the pandemic, more people were dealing with illness and death of a loved one. Prolonged social isolation can also be damaging to mental health.
Just because suicides increased during the pandemic does not mean, unfortunately, that the end of the pandemic (whenever that is) will result in lower suicide rates. Research suggests that the mental health effects of the pandemic will last beyond the reduction of physical illness in society, especially for those more closely and seriously affected by Covid-19. Pandemic-related poorer mental health and increased risk of suicide is likely to exist for some time to come.
Comprehensive strategy
We can, however, learn from this moment. The pandemic has shown what happens when much of society sees a reduction in the protective factors that can prevent suicide, and an increase in the factors that can increase risk of suicide. Enacting policies and programs that protect people from suicide and reduce the risk of suicide—especially for those most at risk—can save lives.
Since the factors that lead to suicide come from all levels of society—within individuals, but also in relationships, in communities, and in society as a whole—suicide prevention requires a systemic approach. Lost&Found is one organization out of many working on suicide prevention, but more people, organizations, schools, and workplaces need to get involved in the work of building up protective factors and reducing risk factors.
“The more comprehensive our suicide prevention efforts become, the more effective they will be,” Muckey said. “That is absolutely essential to saving lives.”
Learn more about protective and risk factors in Lost&Found’s Let’s Talk About Mental Health guide, which can be downloaded here. Learn more about getting involved with Lost&Found’s suicide prevention efforts here.
The Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan featured Lost&Found’s work as part of a series for Mental Health Awareness Month. Here’s a segment from the story:
Muckey serves as executive director of Lost&Found. The non-profit organization has grown far beyond its start at USD and South Dakota State University in Brookings.
“We serve 13 post-secondary institutions from the Twin Cities to the Wyoming border,” he said. “We have expanded our services a great deal, especially during the pandemic.”
The organization’s footprint isn’t the only thing that has grown since its 2010 founding, Muckey said. He pointed to the successes of addressing what was an often unknown or taboo subject.
“I think the greatest change that has happened over the past 12 years is awareness of the need to invest in mental health. There is an increased realization that it’s a good thing (to address it),” he said.
As part of its partnerships with post-secondary campuses in the Midwest, Lost&Found is using an evaluation tool called the Campus Resilience Index (CRI) to provide guidance on how to best create a culture of suicide prevention.
“This is exactly what I wanted – what I needed,” LATC counselor Jessi Whetsel said after the process was completed. It helped to confirm what she had observed about the campus culture at Lake Area Tech and provided a better idea of how to fulfil student needs.
Lost&Found’s Research & Evaluation Manager Gesine Ziebarth, who helped to design and implement the CRI, said the pilot project at Lake Area “opened up the discussion for where we can go from here as an organization and how a tool like the CRI support students.”
The CRI is based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s technical package on suicide prevention (Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices (cdc.gov)). Lost&Found staff defined indicators of risk factors and protective factors of suicide on college campuses that aligned with the CDC’s seven strategies of suicide prevention. Lost&Found looks at the overall campus mental health ecosystem — including policies and procedures, reporting structures, accessibility of information, resources listed on websites, syllabi, student clubs and organizations, and more — to identify strengths and gaps in suicide prevention practices.
This assessment provides campus administrators with information that helps them create an environment conducive to wellness on campus.
The CRI process
Evaluating a campus using the CRI begins with gathering data. Education & Advocacy Manager Courtney Young gathers preliminary data using the school website and conducts interviews with staff to determine structures of support currently in place on campus. Research & Evaluation Manager Gesine Ziebarth determines how the data aligns with each of the indicators defined in the index.
Once measurements of resilience are determined, they are sent to a campus partner with a request for feedback. After that feedback is incorporated, Lost&Found present the CRI and the recommendations they have identified to campus staff, including campus counselors and administrators.
The CRI is intended to be implemented annually so administrators can see how the campus culture changes over time, either through their efforts to improve it, from outside factors, or both.
The data is not public, but campus administrators can release the data if they choose. After a base number of CRI assessments are completed, averages will also be provided to campus administrators so they can see how their campus culture compares to others in the region.
What’s next
Since the successful pilot program at Lake Area Tech, Lost&Found has started the process of implementing the CRI at Dakota Wesleyan University and will present recommendations for improvement in July. The goal at Dakota Wesleyan is to increase retention and a sense of belonging on campus primarily using two of the seven strategies outlined in the CDC’s technical package — identifying and supporting people at risk and promoting connectedness — as these have been identified as areas of growth at DWU.
Lost&Found has also started the CRI data collection process at the University of South Dakota and hopes to use the Campus Resilience Index at South Dakota State University, Augustana University, and Western Dakota Technical College in the near future.
Survivors Joining for Hope’s work supporting suicide loss survivors will become a department of Lost&Found
Survivors Joining for Hope, a nonprofit that provides financial support to families that have suffered a suicide loss, will cease to be an independent organization on August 1, but its work and its name will continue as a department of the suicide prevention organization Lost&Found.
The board of Survivors Joining for Hope (SJ4H) voted on June 20 to dissolve the organization and pass its assets, as well as its mission and programming, to Lost&Found.
Board members of SJ4H, which has been run entirely by volunteers, see the integration with Lost&Found as a way for SJ4H to have a bigger impact and get closer to reaching its potential.
“Survivors Joining for Hope is tremendously excited at the opportunity to unite with Lost&Found,” said SJ4H Founder and Executive Director Brad Hearst. “Alliance of the two organizations brings the opportunity to support a larger audience and grow SJ4H’s programming to levels that our present capacity didn’t allow. The mental health community and survivors of suicide loss will now have greater support structure throughout South Dakota.”
Lost&Found sees the addition of SJ4H’s programming as a way to expand its work addressing the scourge of suicide in South Dakota and the surrounding region.
“We have been honored to partner with Brad Hearst and Survivors Joining for Hope (SJ4H) over the past six years to prioritize and support suicide prevention efforts in our community,” said Erik Muckey, Executive Director and CEO of Lost&Found. “The Lost&Found team is energized by the opportunity to join forces and continue the impact of SJ4H and its programs and financial assistance for suicide loss survivors for decades to come.”
Stakeholders from both organizations are working together to shape how SJ4H’s work will continue as part of Lost&Found. These are some of the changes that will be part of the integration:
The name “Survivors Joining for Hope” will continue as the name of Lost&Found’s new postvention services department.
Lost&Found’s mission has been updated to include youth as young as 10 years old (youth as young as 15 had previously been part of its target demographic) and to include suicide postvention as well as prevention services.
SJ4H’s Financial Assistance Program for survivors of suicide loss will continue, prioritizing youth and young adults (ages 10-34) and/or their support networks in South Dakota, starting with the campus partners currently served by Lost&Found.
The Survivors Support & Resource Network will continue.
The new department will work to craft and recommend postvention policies for schools, colleges, and employers.
SJ4H’s Youth Prevention programming will be integrated into Lost&Found’s programming.
The work of highlighting stories of those impacted by suicide loss will continue through blog posts, videos, and podcast content.
The work of the Survivor Support & Resource Network, the development of postvention policies, and the Youth Prevention Program will be done with new staff and community partners. These programs will be rolled out in coming months.
“Our hope is that, through unification with Lost&Found, we will be able to provide direct support to the youth throughout our service area,” Hearst said. “We felt that L&F had the infrastructure and programming to bring both our survivors loss support program and youth program to a new level. The goal will be to bring loss support programming to college-aged students and younger as well as to grow our peer-to-peer support network.”
About Survivors Joining for Hope
Survivors Joining for Hope was founded in 2016 by Brad Hearst of Sioux Falls, S.D., after his brother died by suicide. The name of the organization honors his brother, Sergei Joseph Hearst, through its initials. SJ4H was founded to provide funding to families that had suffered a loss by suicide so they could focus on grief recovery instead of financial pressure.
The board initially had four members; over six years, it grew to 11 members. By 2022, the organization’s initial focus on the Sioux Empire had expanded to cover the entire state of South Dakota and beyond—SJ4H has served people from nearly every state on the East and West Coasts. Its programming also expanded to include a support network, support groups, and suicide prevention programming for youth.
About Lost&Found
Lost&Found was founded in 2010 by five high school graduates from South Dakota who were motivated to “do more” to prevent suicide. For the first eight or so years, Lost&Found’s work was centered on its campus chapters, which raised awareness of mental health needs and advocated for suicide prevention policies.
The organization has grown significantly in the past four years—from no employees to 15, from a focus on campus chapters to work in three departments (Student Programs, Education & Advocacy, and Evaluation & Research Services), and from three campus chapters to working with 13 post-secondary institutions in South Dakota and Minnesota. More geographical and audience expansion is coming this year.
The organization is headquartered in Sioux Falls and currently serves communities as far west as the Black Hills and as far east as the Twin Cities.
In the kickoff to season 2 of Great Minds with Lost&Found, Erik Muckey, CEO and Executive Director of Lost&Found is on the show to discuss the work L&F does to prevent suicide among youth and young adults (10-34) using the seven strategies outlined by the CDC (Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices). To effectively prevent suicide, systems currently in place must be reimagined to be inclusive of all people. How does that happen and what does that look like? We dive into that in this conversation.
To learn more about the work that Lost&Found is doing to prevent suicide among youth and young adults, go to resilienttoday.org. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (@resilienttoday).
In this conversation, Cody Ingle shares his perspective on suicide prevention from the lens of someone who has working in the LGBTQ+ space and identifies as a gay man. We break down social structures and chat about systems that impact the queer community and how that leads to increased risk of suicide.
To learn more about suicide risk and impact on the LGBTQ+ community, check out the following link from the Trevor Project – trevor01_2022survey_final.pdf.
To learn more about the work that Lost&Found is doing to prevent suicide among youth and young adults, go to resilienttoday.org. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (@resilienttoday).
Brad Hearst, Founder and President of Survivors Joining for Hope, a newly acquired program of Lost&Found’s, is on the show to talk about the economics of prevention, intervention, and postvention of suicide.
Using the The CDC’s seven strategies for preventing suicide found in their technical package for suicide prevention, to guide his work, Brad shares how increasing economic supports can be a protective factor against suicide. We get into the ways finances and economics can be both risk factors and protective factors for prevention, depending on the situation.
To learn more about the work that Lost&Found is doing to prevent suicide among youth and young adults, go to resilienttoday.org. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube (@resilienttoday).
