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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.’”

The teen youth panel discussed various questions on mental health and suicide. When asked what barriers prevented them from seeking help in the past, Lakeland High School Student Caron Hill described not being able to properly communicate how he felt as a barrier.

“With not being able to communicate how I felt, others wouldn’t be able to understand me. I think that was another struggle, not being understood,” Hill said. Not being understood during a time when you feel like that’s all you need can be very hard and can allow you to cast a shadow or form those feelings and kind of push them away.”

Nansemond River High School Student Aira Shinaba followed up, expressing the fear of ending up in a mental institution preventing teens from speaking out and getting help.

“I think something that stops a lot of teens from speaking up is because there’s a very clear understanding that if you talk to a teacher about it, they always tell us that ‘If you have thoughts about harming others, harming yourself, we have a legal obligation to tell somebody,’” Shinaba said.

Cutting, along with WTCSB Prevention Manager Angela Brown and WTCSB Prevention Program Clinical Administrator Vonda Warren-Lilly, discussed coordinating the event and bringing it to SPS.

“… we’ve been fortunate enough to have the support of all of our local community services boards and behavioral health organizations. So we’ve been working with a planning committee over the last six to eight months to get to this point,” Cutting said. “And it’s been really good, we’ve had a lot of support from our local partners and especially, we’re very grateful to Kings Fork High School for allowing us to use this space.”

Noting the high volume of registration and interest for the event, Cutting says she feels people are becoming more comfortable talking about suicide due to events like Shatter the Silence. Brown discussed various resources that WTCSB provides for the community, such as mental health training.

“In addition to that, we have our counselors that are provided in Western Tidewater and then the 988 number that anyone can use as well,” Brown said.

Expressing the importance of their goal of prevention, treatment, and recovery, Warren-Lilly discussed resources such as a Crisis Program for children, a Crisis Receiving Center located at Godwin Blvd, as well as Same Day Access services.

“You come through our front door, we do an assessment and then at that point, they can determine what you are eligible for based on your presenting issues or concern, frequency, duration and intensity of your symptoms will determine where we place you,” Warren-Lilly said.

SPS Superintendent Dr. John B. Gordon III talked about what he hopes the school community takes away from community members and SPS students speaking out about mental health and suicide. 

“I would like for the entire school community to understand the importance of having the conversation about suicide awareness and mental health,” Gordon said. 

“Unfortunately, some of us do not see the impact of suicide until it hits home, and the overall goal is to be preventative and proactive so that everyone will know about the available resources.”

On what she hopes teens and their families will take away from the event, Cutting says she hopes they understand that “it’s ok to not be ok.”

“That there is support out there, that there is no shame in needing help and asking for help, that there’s actually strength in that,” Cutting said. “And that’s really what we’re focusing on, is what’s strong as opposed to what’s wrong. So, empowering people to know that they do have a voice, there is support out there and really, just promoting that 988 lifeline number and to get in touch with the services.”

Cutting continued.

“We hope that families will start to have these conversations within the family unit and we also – in prevention – provide different groups, classes, trainings that also help to improve the wellness of the family dynamic as well,” she said. “But ultimately yeah, the main goal is to shatter the silence by letting people know that ‘Listen, it’s ok to not be ok.’ You can talk about this going on.”

If you are in crisis, please call, text, or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. For more information, go to facebook.com/SuicideAwarenessShatterTheSilence