Editor's Note: This story contains mention of self-harm. If you or someone you know is considering suicide or other acts of self-harm, please contact Colorado Crisis Services by calling 1-844-493-8255 or texting “TALK” to 38255 for free, confidential, and immediate support.
A longtime Colorado suicide prevention nonprofit is dissolving.
The Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado was formed in 1999 to create a statewide agency to prevent suicide, which happened the next year.
Further progress has come with schools and health care systems increasingly being mandated to implement suicide prevention protocols.
“None of this existed when SPCC began; now it’s standard,” the group states on its website.
The group's treasurer, Erin Ivie, said there's now much more awareness of suicide prevention and more people working in the field, and the mission can now be sustained by larger groups and coalitions.
“The bottom line is Colorado is a leader in suicide prevention because we're all working together to make this a better place, she said. “And I think SPCC had a huge piece in that.”
She said the group’s membership has declined in recent years from around 250 to about 55.
The group's board chair, Jennifer Daniels, said the number of people and organizations working to reduce suicide in the state has grown considerably since SPCC’s start.
“There's some sort of targeted suicide prevention efforts happening all over the state,” she said.
“The Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado helped build the foundation of our state's suicide prevention work,” said Dymond Ruybal, Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Program Manager, Prevention Services Division, with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “We are immensely grateful for their vision and dedicated leadership over so many years.”
Ruybal said the SPCC was instrumental in leading the legislation that created the Office of Suicide Prevention, which eventually resulted in the establishment of the Colorado Suicide Prevention Commission.
That helped institutionalize a commitment to addressing the social, economic and environmental factors that contribute to suicidal despair, he said.
“The coalition’s work also ensured that community voices would be integral to guiding the recommendations and decisions that have helped make important strides in decreasing our suicide rates over the past 25 years,” Ruybal said, in an emailed statement.
Colorado, like most of the states in the Mountain West, has among the highest suicide rates in the country, according to the most recent data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Factors behind the trend are complex. Contributors to the risk of self-harm include things like untreated mental health challenges, problems with physical health, lack of access to mental health care and social supports and loss of a job or loved one.
Many of the SPCC’s members joined the cause after having someone in their own lives die by suicide.
Ivie said she lost her childhood best friend, Luke, to suicide in 2007. In the years surrounding his death in Eagle County, “there was probably another 10 deaths of people that I was acquainted with or knew,” said Ivie, who also serves as executive director for Speak Up Reach Out, the Suicide Prevention Organization in Eagle County.
“I do this work because I don't want people to walk that journey of grief alone. I want people to know they feel they're supported,” Ivie said.
Daniels echoed those thoughts.
“I've lost family members and friends to suicide,” said Daniels, who is the division director for behavioral health with Mesa County Public Health. “Probably the biggest driver is my own mental health and having some level of suicidality growing up. That's kind of what drives me to do the work.”
Daniels said despite the coalition winding down its efforts, she thinks the topic will still be a priority for the state.
“We just need to keep pushing forward and do better for our fellow Coloradans, then that's good in my book,” said Daniels.
The SPCC plans to wrap up by the end of next month.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide or other acts of self-harm, please visit 988Colorado.com or call or text 988 from your cell phone, for free, confidential, and immediate support.
