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First Posted: 12/23/2013 Grassroots groups in Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton are fighting for lives.
Samantha Neaman, the principal&#8217;s assistant at Hazleton Area High School, lost her son, Kyle Koslop, to suicide when he was 13. She has been trying to bring attention to the matter and teach people to spot at-risk children and intervene.
On a snowy day this month, students puttered around the principal&#8217;s office making small talk with Neaman. Seniors at Hazleton Area with enough credits can opt to spend a few hours a week helping file papers and answer the telephone. Neaman&#8217;s younger peers quieted and looked knowingly as she explained the hurt she still feels when she talks about Kyle.
&#8220;I&#8217;ll always make time to talk about my experience and get the word out,&#8221; Neaman said. She added that it&#8217;s never easy. &#8220;But me as a survivor, it kills me every time I have to talk about it.&#8221;
Neaman started the group Stop the Silence, an organization committed to preventing suicide and consoling those who have lost loved ones to it. She helps run other school-sanctioned student groups and organizes seminars for teachers and school officials to learn how to handle suicide risks.
The greatest problem she sees in getting help to those hurting: Suicide is taboo.
&#8220;I just found that nobody would talk about (suicide), nobody was trained to handle it,&#8221; Neaman said. The school has guidance counselors and teachers well versed in crisis management, but formal training on suicide is lacking, she said.
The same is true north of Luzerne County. In Scranton, Kathy Wallace, who runs her own non-profit, the Northeast Suicide Prevention Initiative, has partnered with Neaman on many occasions and said inaccurate notions follow suicide.
&#8220;The stigma that goes along with (suicide), it&#8217;s a different kind of death and people don&#8217;t reach out. It&#8217;s not because they don&#8217;t want to, but because they don&#8217;t know how to,&#8221; Wallace said. &#8220;People who die by suicide, especially teenagers, they don&#8217;t want to die, they just want the pain to stop.&#8221;
Contrary to what most might think, those at risk for suicide want to be approached about it, Neaman said.
&#8220;They welcome (confrontation) because you have given them the opportunity to speak about it,&#8221; she said.
Numbers untrustworthy
The Pennsylvania Adult/Older Adult Suicide Prevention Coalition reports more than 1,500 people committed suicide in Pennsylvania in 2012.
Five Luzerne County teenagers committed suicide last year. While many hurry to indict bullying for the tragic deaths, experts weighed in saying countless factors play into what leads to suicide.
Joe DeLucca, a grant manager for the Luzerne Intermediate Unit who coordinates school-counselor programs and the Safe Schools student program, said those who attempt suicide almost always feel circumstances are out of control.
But statistics are often misleading and inaccurate, DeLucca said.
&#8220;With suicide, especially the suicide of youth, one is too many,&#8221; DeLucca said.
&#8220;We can help kids by teaching them resiliency skills, teaching them that life isn&#8217;t always fair or easy and that pain and struggle are part of everyone&#8217;s life at some point,&#8221; DeLucca said. &#8220;It is not so much the event, it is how we choose to respond to it that matters.&#8221;
Local/national hurdles
Hazleton Area may be an exception. Neaman credits her job as a &#8220;foot in the door&#8221; to get her school&#8217;s support for suicide-prevention education and support groups.
But Wallace said schools generally are &#8220;tremendously resistant to doing policies and procedures and training.&#8221;
New state legislation now sits before the state Senate that would require school entities, including districts and charter schools, to offer suicide-prevention training for educators every five years. The bill received near-unanimous approval in the House, with three out of 196 voting representatives against the rule.
The legislation is a good start, but it&#8217;s not enough, Wallace said. Teachers should receive training yearly, and schools should have staff policies if any school employee finds a child to be struggling with thoughts of suicide, she said.
Neaman and Wallace both had raised money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, but since have split from the foundation for reasons they found it difficult to get support for their own projects.
The national organization provides a selection of materials and programs for its 62 chapter groups around the country. Wallace applied for extra funds to bring in an outside instructor to lead a seminar. She found it cumbersome to get approval and disbanded the chapter she headed.
However, another chapter replaced Wallace&#8217;s about a year ago, according to AFSP spokeswoman Kimberly Gleason, and they&#8217;ve been spreading suicide-prevention education and outreach programs for those they call &#8220;suicide survivors&#8221; from the Poconos to northern Susquehanna County, Gleason said.
Now that Wallace and Neaman have branched off and started their own groups, community support has strengthened exponentially, Neaman said. And her efforts in Hazleton are working.
At one recent fundraiser walk, she reported more than 700 students turning out to support the cause.
Neaman joined the Drive Out Suicide Initiative for which she places a large decal on her car&#8217;s rear window. The decal reads &#8220;There is Hope&#8221; and has phone number for the Pennsylvania Adult/Older Adult Suicide Prevention Coalition. The decal has sparked conversations with strangers in unusual places, such as parking lots outside football games or the grocery store.
Neaman encourages those who would like to get involved to sign up to drive around with the sticker and be willing to talk about the project. They should be willing to offer a shoulder or a listening ear to anyone who might ask, Neaman said.

Suicide prevention seen in a new light