Did You Know?

• Every year there are approximately 10 youth suicides for every 100,000 youth
• Each day there are approximately 11.3 teen suicides
• Every 2 hours and 7 minutes, a person under the age of 25 commits suicide
• For every completed youth suicide it is estimated that 100-200 attempts are made
• In a typical high school classroom it is estimated that at least 3 students have made a suicide attempt within the past year

Did you know that the California education code section 41533 states:
 
“This statute authorizes school districts to use a portion of their Professional Development Block Grant funding to pay for suicide prevention training for school teachers. The teacher training is not to exceed two hours and may occur during a regularly scheduled in-service day"
 
This seems troubling because we can't expect teachers to learn everything there is to know about suicide prevention and all of its different components if the funding will only "allow" them to have ONLY 2 hours or less in training.