SAVE - Suicide Awareness Voices of Education
7317 Cahill Road, Suite 207
Minneapolis, MN 55439-0507
Phone: (952) 946-7998 --- Toll Free 1-888-511-SAVE
Fax: (952) 946 7998
Word Wide Web Site: http://www.save.org --- E-mail Address: save@winternet.com

The mission of SAVE is to educate about suicide prevention and speak for suicide survivors.

SAVE was started in 1989 when six suicide survivors (people who have experienced the loss of a loved one to suicide) met and agreed on the need for an organization.  The organization is comprised mostly of suicide survivors, and people that have suffered from depression. The major event for the organization is SAVE’s Suicide Awareness and Memorial Day held every spring in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which draws nearly 500 people annually.

Over the years, the organization’s Board of Directors has grown to include survivors who bring a special affinity for the issue and individuals with other skills to ensure successful organizational growth, development and management.  Until early 1998, the organization operated solely on the efforts of volunteers.  A strategic planning process yielded a decision to hire staff, including an Executive Director, who was hired in May 1999. 

HOW SAVE WORKS

SAVE is a 501.C3 non-profit agency governed by a volunteer Board of Directors.

Mission, Goals and Objectives:   The #1 cause of suicide is untreated depression.  SAVE is committed to the education of the general public about the depressive brain diseases (such as clinical depression and bipolar illness) that can result in suicide if left untreated medically and psychologically.  By educating the general public about such brain diseases, SAVE strives to remove the stigma associated with these diseases.  SAVE’s prevention and education programs are designed to:

• Increase knowledge about depression and suicide prevention.

• Increase knowledge about symptoms of depression and the warning signs of suicidal thinking and behavior.

• Increase the confidence and competence of participants to make interventions and referrals.

• Increase understanding and the use of intervention skills that can help avert the tragedy of suicide.

• Increase knowledge about community resources, how to access and use them.

SAVE’s Current Programs, Activities and Statistics

For ten years, SAVE has developed and implemented its prevention and awareness programs mainly in the state of Minnesota.  All SAVE programs seek to educate both the general public and more specific audiences about and clinical depression and suicide prevention. 

Media: Since its inception, SAVE has recognized the power of the media to raise awareness about clinical depression and suicide prevention.  SAVE’s signature campaign uses billboards to convey two messages:  that depression is a disease and that untreated depression can lead to suicide.  First implemented locally, this effort has now moved to a national level.  By the end of 1999, SAVE had billboards posted in 13 cities:  Minneapolis, St. Paul, Duluth, Rochester, St. Cloud, San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, Portland, Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Cleveland.  In 2000 the campaign will expand to 10-12 additional cities: Sioux Falls, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Dallas, New York, Albany, Mobile and Charlotte, Raleigh.  Each campaign will begin with the signature outdoor media products made available through key relationships with several vendors, and supplemented with targeted radio, print and television public service announcements.  In addition to the billboards, media-like messages are posted on buses, in bus shelters, movie screens and shopping center kiosks.  Camera-ready filler ad slicks are distributed free of charge to college and community newspapers and community-based organizational newsletters.  Radio and television public service announcements are available.  In addition, SAVE responds to requests from print, radio and TV media as well as actively seeks coverage. 

The year 2000 also offers two unprecedented opportunities:  to use television as a vehicle for an educational suicide prevention message and to develop a statewide public awareness campaign.  Through a partnership with WCCO, the Minneapolis CBS affiliate, two, thirty-second commercials will air beginning in April 2000 during prime time.  SAVE will seek an opportunity to take this television campaign to other CBS affiliates on a national level.  Through a grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, SAVE (in partnership with a nationally recognized public relations firm) will create a statewide awareness campaign targeted at older white males, African American and Native American male youth, populations where suicide rates are highest or growing the fastest.  This multi-level awareness campaign combined with our educational efforts puts public awareness activity at the center of SAVE’s work.  Previously successful public health prevention campaigns have demonstrated that change begins with broad-based awareness that can be leveraged into changes in attitude and behavior, both of which are required to prevent suicide.

Community Education

SAVE has several educational programs on depression and suicide prevention, the goal of which is to bring about these changes in attitude and behavior among members of the general public and specific audiences. 

Speakers’ Bureau:   SAVE’s   Speakers’ Bureau trains volunteer members of the community to teach others the symptoms of depression and the warning signs of suicide.  In 1998 the speakers’ bureau reached 9,960 people, and 13,000 people in 1999.

School-Based Suicide Prevention Program:   SAVE has developed a   school-based suicide prevention program   aimed at school staff, students and parents.  Using QPR (Question, Persuade and Refer) as the educational model, SAVE’s trained volunteer staff, teach the entire school community how to recognize the symptoms of clinical depression, the warning signs of suicide and how to get help.  In the 1999-2000 school year, SAVE will take the program to at least 10 schools reaching 3,000 students, school staff and parents. 

Educational Events:   SAVE offers educational events  for the general public and for professional groups. Each spring, preceding National Mental Health Month, SAVE sponsors a Suicide Awareness and Memorial Day (SAMD).  1999 marked the 10^th anniversary of this event.  In 1999, 450 people attended the SAMD.   The event is geared toward survivors, focusing on celebrating and remembering the lives of those lost to suicide and increasing understanding of suicide and the brain diseases that cause it.  The event is entirely volunteer driven.  In the fall, SAVE sponsors educational conferences and workshops with the goal of raising awareness about clinical depression and its relationship to suicide.  Beginning in 2000, events will be focused on education of the professional audiences who are targeted by SAVE in its strategic planning process.  These include mental health professionals, primary care physicians and nurses, and clergy.

Information Dissemination

Information is the key to changing people’s attitudes and behaviors.  SAVE disseminates a number of publications and public education tools such as the SAVE brochure, the SAVE Test Card, the Depression Fact Book, the student response handout, etc., through the mail, over the internet, in speaking presentations and at conference displays.  An educational newsletter, with a circulation of over 5000 is published quarterly.  It focuses on organizational, local, state and national suicide prevention activity as well as spotlights literature on recent scientific findings.  Other materials include grief packets for friends and family members who have lost a loved one to suicide, wallet cards which remind people of the symptoms of clinical depression, warning signs of suicide, and other educational materials.  SAVE responded to 500 requests for this information from individuals and organizations in 1998 and 1,000  requests in 1999, distributing over 5000 information packets.  Additionally SAVE has  copyrights to two books written by a founder of SAVE. 

SAVE staffs educational displays at local, state and national professional conferences, expos and trade shows each year.  Volunteers are recruited to staff the displays and provide visitors with one on one education about the symptoms of depression and the warning signs of suicide, as well as coaching about how to intervene with someone a person may be worried about.  In 1999, we attended 20 such events, reaching thousands of people with our literature.  In 2000, the professional audiences chosen as targets in the strategic planning process (clergy, mental health professionals and health care professionals) will also focus SAVE’s choice of conferences.

SAVE has a user friendly website with comprehensive information about depression awareness and suicide prevention.  The SAVE website is linked to 870 other sites and has won numerous awards for the quality and accessibility of the information provided.  In 1999, SAVE had close to 300,000 visits to the site and responded to 800 individual e-mails.  In 2000, SAVE will add “Every School” to its lists of website resources.  In addition to accessing information on the website, visitors can get personalized responses to questions and concerns about suicide and depression via e-mail.    “Every School” provides a comprehensive suicide prevention program to students, staff and parents supported by model policies and procedures for the successful prevention of suicide through the successful identification of individual suffering from depression and other brain diseases.  The site will provide a description of SAVE’s school-based prevention program and the services offered. 

SAVE also meets requests for educational and referral information.  In 1999 SAVE responded to 400 phone calls from people requesting info.  Information is also distributed through bereavement response, information and referrals for grief support  to people who have lost a loved one to suicide.  While SAVEs’ focus is not on grief support, it remains committed to survivors by providing a listening ear, needed information and, later, a volunteer opportunity to become involved in prevention work.

Professional Education

By doing community education, SAVE is aware that professionals in the helping fields need suicide prevention education and training as much as those they are responsible for helping.  Consider this story.

During a youth camp, a 12-year-old boy, after hearing a SAVE presentation (which directs young people to tell a trusted adult about concerns for self or others), told the SAVE volunteer that a friend, a 13 year old girl who was with him at camp, was currently depressed and suicidal.  She had attempted suicide before.  The camp director, who was a trained social worker, was notified immediately.  Instead of implementing a sound policy for assessment, intervention and prevention, the director asked the young man if he was comfortable telling her parents about her depression.  The SAVE volunteer intervened and suggested that the camp staff should assume this responsibility.  The volunteer reminded staff that the camp was responsible for this child’s health, just as if she were to get appendicitis at camp.  We worked with the director and some of the counselors to develop an intervention plan, which included notifying her parents. 

As a result of stories like this one SAVE has renewed its commitment to provide professional training to various groups who are likely to come in contact with potential suicide victims and their families.  In this story, the professionals wanted to help but did not know how.  Our community education presentation created a need that the professionals in this case were unable to meet.  In 2000, SAVE will enhance its professional training capacity by forming a strategic alliance with the QPR Institute, the creator of QPR (Question, Persuade and Refer), a nationally recognized suicide prevention training.  This alliance will include marketing this product and hosting trainings for natural gatekeepers and professionals.  SAVE will have access to clinically trained professionals to conduct its trainings.  This enhanced program capitalizes on the credibility of SAVE and the QPR Institute, provides personal and clinical stories to make the training points real and believable, and helps build SAVE’s credibility in professional communities.  Currently SAVE has 17 volunteers who are trained as QPR instructors.  As a result of strategic planning, professional training will focus on clergy, mental health professionals, and health care professionals, namely primary care physicians and their staff, who in 70% of cases of completed suicide, saw the victims one to six weeks before the suicide.