Youth Suicide: How Do We Prevent It, Should Government Fund More Prevention Programs? Essay Example

When people think about suicide, they think about someone taking their own life away on purpose. They think about someone going through a depression of some short and can no longer live with it and decide to end his or her existence. Suicide is a dramatic word that can change the way people view things in life. But when youth is in front of the word suicide it becomes more serial. Consider these numbers “this year, about 2,800 young people will kill themselves, including about 1,600 in the emotionally volatile 15-to-19-year-old age group” or that “one in five high school students seriously considers suicide?”(Hosansky) Why do they do it? Many adults still overlook that young people deal with a lot like depression, loss, frustration, weighty disappointment, and rejection. Fact, Suicide is the third leading cause of death among U.S. youths. It is speculated that “[m]ental illness and substance abuse disorders are identified in 90% of those who die by suicide (Gould, Greenberg, Velting, & Shaffer). Depressive disorders are the most frequent problem for youth, and the vast majority of depressed youth involved in suicides are untreated when they die” (Baber and Bean). Why weren’t they treated? How do we prevent this, and should government fund more prevention programs? In preventing this problem first one has to identify the suicidal youth, which is very hard. Some experts believe many schools should have programs to train parents, teachers and students to spot potentially depressed children. They say screening for suicidal tendencies should be as widespread as screening for hearing problems. In their article Frameworks: A Community Based Approach To Preventing Youth Suicide, Kristine Baber and Gretchen Bean states that “[s]trategies for preventing youth suicide include education programs, screening programs, means restriction programs, and programs targeted to specific groups of young people such as Native American youth or those exposed to the