“First aid in suicide prevention” was how Tom Nitschke characterized aspects of the program he presented last Saturday morning at Becker High School. The content is a curriculum he designed after a career in education that included 18 years of classroom teaching, and serving as the superintendent of schools and  school principal in Kulm, ND, a small community southwest of Jamestown, ND.

 

Nitschke said that he is now primarily focused on presenting his workshops on resiliency in school districts throughout the Midwest at the moment, though he still teaches classes in health and consumer education at the high school in Kulm.

 

The suicide of a student 15 years ago was the genesis of the program Nitschke presented in Becker last week. A group of 58 attendees took part, including some teachers, local government officials and community residents all of whom were interested in learning about identifying and preventing situations that might take young people to consider suicide.

 

Topics in the presentation included creating coping mechanisms for dealing with stress, feelings of depression and thoughts of suicide, triggers and consequences of emotions and reactions, developing control strategies for positive and negative thoughts, and mind-sets and strategies for anticipating and discarding thoughts of suicide.  The program also dealt with the importance of “immediately” combating suicidal thoughts, and a discussion of “confirmation bias” in which people seek affirmation of their negative feelings even if it runs contrary to the facts.

 

Resiliency strategies are important for all students, Nitschke maintains, those who are “succeeding” as well as those who appear to be struggling to cope with academics or social situations in school.

 

The all-day session took place in the new Teaching and Learning Center at BHS, and included a lunch for participants.  

 

The event was sponsored by the Becker Community Education Office and the Dylan’s Hope Foundation, and was presented free of charge to the community.  Dylan’s Hope was created in honor of the memory of Dylan Aaseby, and is “dedicated to the prevention of suicide through public awareness and community outreach.”

 

More information is available on-line at www.tonitsch@kulm.k12.nd.us