K12 Brings New Meaning to "Suicide Squad" Vol 8 rel 3

A subject usually relegated to Psychology magazines, and Health Journals, is suicide.

However, with suicide now ranking 10^th in leading cause of death in the US, and 2nd in for ages 10-24 (2017 CDC WISQARS).  It has placed itself front and center in our every day life...

Before we pursue this any further, let’s familiarize with some facts:

Youth Suicide Statistics

• Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for college-age youth and ages 12-18. (2017 CDC WISQARS)

• More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED.

• Each day in our nation, there are an average of over 3,041 attempts by young people grades 9-12.  If these percentages are additionally applied to grades 7 & 8, the numbers would be higher.

• Four out of Five teens who attempt suicide have given clear warning signs.

Where Do These Number Come From?

The Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System (YRBS) is a survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that includes national, state, and local school-based representative samples of 9th through 12th grade students. The purpose is to monitor priority health risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social problems among youth in the United States.

The surveys are conducted every two years to determine the prevalence of these health risk behaviors. Behaviors that contribute to unhealthy lifestyles and those that indicate possible depression and/or suicidal tenancies are included.

Researchers have been working for decades on interventions to decrease the rate of suicides among teens (as well as among adults). It’s hard. For one, many people who died by suicide never got mental health treatment at all. And the ones that did, well, there’s very limited evidence on what works.

In fact, according to the authors of a new paper in JAMA Psychiatry I read recently, “To our knowledge, no other intervention for suicidal adolescents has been associated with reduced mortality.” That alone is a major flag.  There’s nothing that’s been scientifically proven to save lives when it comes to suicidal teens, except what they discovered in this paper?

A New Hope...

With the declarative that "Nothing that’s been scientifically proven to save lives when it comes to suicidal teens" one would be quite discouraged; however, at Palm Springs Unified School District, some would not only take um-bridge to that statement, but may have data of their own to prove otherwise.

Enter Eric Arline, one of six (6) Network Engineers to stay the tide of network anomalies that flood the district’s computing continuity.  Eric duties, among fighting the good fight, also takes on the role of cyber security which includes disseminating the deluge of alerts in the areas of security breaches, intrusion alerts, malware alerts, etc.

Early this month, Eric closes his day of alerts, calls, and conversations, his shift being from 7:30 to 4:30pm.  Eric goes home with the assurances, that most of these malfeasance including a myriad of others shall be waiting for him in the morning. 

So, before his evening constitutional is even started, an interruption occurs at 8:07 PM, a typical affair, a little piece of technology, that scans content being reviewed by students, sends an alert notification.  This could be anything; however, Eric, decided to take a quick glance to make sure it isn’t critical, I.e, network outage, virus issues, etc. 

Although, not an critical alert of the technology kind, it was a of critical alert of the human kind.  He sees that a student is reviewing a site dedicated to instruction on killing oneself minimizing the pain of the experience, and the potential impact of others. Knowing that this type of behavior gone unchecked could be the makings of a major catastrophe, he immediately alerts his Director in the same minute he sees the notification.  Eric debriefs his Director, and the process begins.

Enter PSUSD's Suicide Prevention Program...

Fortunately, PSUSD is no stranger to this behavior and has put in place a series of procedures that assist in preventing the very thing that drive the aforementioned statistics – teen suicide.  

PSUSD realized long ago that notification, and reaching out with counseling is only valuable if it is done early in the game, so they indoctrinated a content filtering technology to not only to block inappropriate websites, but to look for triggers of depression, bullying, or hints of self-harm.  In fact, they went so far to go beyond just notification, but built a process around doing something about it once it's discovered. 

A process of care that places the student's best interest in the forefront.  This process includes the parents, counselors, and a series of support groups that stay with that student for the long run.  This program is chartered to focus on the students' well being, to place things in proper perspective, and convey that someone is there to assist through this student’s troubled times long after this process is initiated.

PSUSD Adds to Its Arsenal...

PSUSD adopted Gaggle in 2002 to focus on Student Email filtering.

Gaggle evolved with the market changes, expanding their services to meet district needs as 1 to 1 and take home pilots become a reality..  New features and services in Gaggle included Google Drive analyzation of content as well as Workflow notifications.

Will Carr, Director ETIS (Education Technology Information Services) worked with Dr. Mike Swize, Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services to align PSUSD’s Educational Services team members into the Technology enabled workflow notifications. This workflow generates real time alerts and notifications allowing key staff to provided intervention and focused services.

Over the last 18 years, PSUSD was able to disrupt and provide support to 5 students who were contemplating suicide using technology driven workflow notification.

The ETIS team has focused various resources to collected disaggregated information to provide a picture of students online activities that allow PSUSD to provide various levels of support and services. Most recently Eric has integrated web search data in the notification process.

Will stated, "No longer are we just filtering internet content, blocking inappropriate sites and worrying about network speeds… we are also identifying student needs in real time and aligning solutions to our most important customers' needs to ensure their safety. I am lucky have such an amazing team!"

It’s What You Do With The Challenges that Makes all The Difference..

In short, because Eric at the Palm Springs Unified School district decided that his duties, were not defined by the end of his shift, he brings heart to what would normally be an innocuous alert, and may very well have saved a life in doing so. 

So, as the nation’s suicide rates seem to climb, a stall-worth of defiance, sits PSUSD, a goal to thwart that trend. With hopes that other Districts will follow suit.

Less we forget, that during the wee hours of the day, deep in the labyrinth of the empty IT cubicles, lit only by the huge of blue light from computer screens,  sits a lone individual, that knows not only that his work keeps the district’s networks running, but at some moments, may be the balance that tips the scales of life and death.  Well done Eric...


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Source(s)

• https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/leading_causes_of_death_by_age_group_2017-508.pdf

• https://www.crisistextline.org/blog/change-the-stats

• https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/numbers

• http://prp.jasonfoundation.com/facts/youth-suicide-statistics/

• https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/index.htm

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobcook/2019/03/31/with-teen-suicide-rates-soaring-some-high-school-athletes-focus-on-mental-health/#2019499b3479

• https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/2/28/18234667/teen-suicide-prevention

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“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 23 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.
For more information, contact Rick at (800) 399-6085 x502