(gentle music) - Postvention is what we term it as sitting in the grief space.

We sit in the space after a death from suicide, and we work with those left in bereavement.

And for me, postvention saved my life because the ambiguity of whether I wanted to live or not when I was in my very worst pain was real.

And so having peer support, having people working in the postvention space to sit with me, to work with me, to give me resources, information, was able to navigate that very initial shock of losing someone to suicide.

(gentle music) - As a survivor of suicide, my loss was my 18-year-old son, Aaron Scott Williamson.

We lost Aaron on March 20, 2008.

- Until that day, suicide was somebody else's experience, problem to deal with.

This was the first time that suicide touched us personally.

We actually still call him our sunshine boy because he brought sunshine into the room.

He was full of joy and laughter.

He was the class clown.

- He was bright.

He was loyal.

He was fun in our family.

Did not, on the outward appearances, struggle with some addiction or something of that nature.

But if there was ever gonna be a surprise that someone would take his life, it would be Aaron, at least from my viewpoint.

Prior to that date, I would've never pictured suicide impacting me or impacting my family.

Complete surprise, blindsided by it.

And so I get to learn terms and begin to deal with emotions and various aspects of surviving a suicide loss that I would never have dreamed.

First time I'd ever heard this word, this postvention thing.

What the heck is that?

Well, it really makes good sense once we really talk through it.

Oh, the quicker we get there right after the death-post and we intervene vention with those who are suffering, they're in the circle, the better chance we have of preventing suicide, further suicides.

- Well, postvention is prevention, but postvention is also the beginning of helping people heal.

So there's two things, and I'm gonna just talk about two models, but obviously you're here to talk to Frank Campbell and LOSS Teams, which is an amazing postvention model and so important to reach survivors after their loss and connect them to resources.

Another thing that is Edwin, the founder of AAS, started was something called psychological autopsies.

Psychological autopsy is the why.

So people die by suicide and that's a coroner medical examiner's decision, but why did they die by suicide?

And I'm just gonna use the example.

So my grandfather left that note.

My mother was never allowed to talk about him.

She made up a story that he didn't really jump off that bridge.

He just moved to South America.

He didn't abandon her by dying.

He fell in love with somebody else and he just was overwhelmed with love.

She could process that.

She told me that as a child, she didn't believe he was really in the grave, that is his name.

And so then when my mother moved into a continuing care community about two years ago, I got all the family history.

I sat and started reading it.

I found an essay my grandfather wrote about being afraid he was gonna fail his family, the being afraid he was gonna fail his wife that he loves so much and his two children.

I have all these letters from the Department of State introducing my grandfather to Argentina because he was coming to estimate steel.

Clearly he was used to status and there he was trying to get a new job and the steel industry was drying up.

And then I found this picture and we see a picture of two people looking at each other and the love radiates over off of it.

And I went to my mom and I said, "Hey mom, I've looked at all of this paperwork, all of these documents, all these letters he wrote.

He died by suicide, mom.

He didn't abandon you.

He was just afraid of failing you and grandma."

She looked at me, she said, "Do you really think so?"

And I said, "Yeah.

And the next morning she woke up and she said, Honey, I slept different last night.

I feel different about all of that.

I really thought.

She's like, I really though he just loved someone more than he loved me.

And I said, No ma, he just didn't wanna fail you."

And once again, she was only nine months, so old, so she never knew him, but she saw what it did to my grandma who loved him so much.

And that's what part of what psychological autopsies are about.

They're not done decades later by a granddaughter looking through things.

They're done by interviewing the loss survivors at that time to understand the pieces.

And it's both to, if there is the ability to kind of come to some here, this is what we learned.

And also then it serves to inform prevention.

So when I was in Maine, I was running the NAMI Chapter, we were the CDC's suicide prevention postvention partner.

So they did psychological autopsies on a high-number of high-percentage of suicides.

So I got the data that 22% of current and former service members who had completed suicide died by suicide had told a medical or mental health professional, but about 45% who died by suicide had told a current or former romantic partner or an immediate family member, a grandma, an auntie, a parent.

Then with that data, I got a small grant and I had a clinician who developed a training that was just an hour long that was what to say when your loved one who's a current or former service member says they want to die.

And what does that look like and what do you say back?

Instead of saying, "Honey, you're gonna be okay," it was, "Honey, we have some resources.

Let's talk about options."

And that one intervention point could make the difference, right?

Because if they say, "Oh, you're gonna be fine," then that person felt silenced, the door wasn't opened.

But if they say, "Okay, it's okay you feel that way.

Let's talk about some different options of what we could do next."

You're opening the door to voice and choice, which is so important about what they wanna do.

It's another version of that how postvention both helps loss survivors, but also is prevention because I could take that knowledge and make preventative strategies.

(gentle music) - Scott was my brother.

He lived in Dallas-Fort Worth area.

We were as close as you could ever get.

He was probably my second heartbeat.

I mean, I love him.

He was my younger brother.

I'm the oldest.

He was my younger brother and always looked up to him.

He always used to tell me, he looked up to me being the older sibling and I, from birth, looked up to him.

He was a wonderful example of what a human being should be.

My niece, as I mentioned, in Dallas is the one that found my brother.

She shared the experience of what occurred that night with the police officers and the mortician and everything.

And she was not offered any type of service, any kind of counseling, any kind of groups, nothing.

- And that's why Paul and I do what we do with our response team, LOSS, Local Outreach to Survivors of Suicide, is we are meeting with the people who are most at risk now, about seven and a half years after Aaron's death.

I was surfing the web and I came across the National LOSS Conference, which was going to be held for, I think, the third time in Fort Worth, Texas.

And I didn't even register.

I just drove.

I just drove there (laughs loudly) and rented a room in town and showed up and said, "What is this?

Can I come in?"

(laughs loudly) But that's where I met Dr.

Frank Campbell.

And so he's the one who developed this postvention model.

- What I did by observing people coming to our Center for Health is that we were living in a passive-postvention model.

They had to find us.

And this was back in the '90s and then in the '80s where we didn't have the internet.

We had a phone book and people didn't know where to look for help.

So they were stumbling onto us accidentally.

They might read an article in the newspaper that refers to our agency.

So people were coming in and getting help, but the average elapsed time between the death and finding us was four and a half years.

That's just too long to live with this kind of pain.

And by the time they did get help, now maybe they had an alcohol addiction, a drug addiction, may have lost jobs, they may have lost relationships.

I wanted a way to shorten the elapsed time.

So I thought the opposite of passive is active.

So if we had an active-postvention model, it would mean we go out and help them.

My belief was if we could get to them as soon as the death occurs by being first responders that are trained with crime scene etiquette, paraprofessionals that know what to do when they get to the scene, and all we're there to do is make referral.

It is never gonna be counseling or treatment or anything.

That would be inappropriate.

We go there as peers and we, and they say, "Well, you had a loss."

Yes, I had a loss.

In my case, it was a suicide.

And I went here for help.

And they go, "My loss was suicide."

"Where did you go?

You had a suicide?"

And in that moment, what we've determined from doing this since 1998 is the installation of hope is transferred to that newly-bereaved person.

And for the first time in this horrific day of their life, somehow they get a glimmer of hope.

Here's somebody that's had a suicide in their life.

Before the day, I didn't know anybody.

This person can come out here and be here to be with me who went through this and tell me where they got help.

And they say to me, "You paid too great a price already.

All the services are free.

All you have to do is come when you're ready and we'll leave that information here with you."

Our average today from the teams that collect this data and all the countries that the LOSS team operates in, I think we're in six or seven countries, is under 60 days people come in for help.

Now that's all I wanted to know.

Could we shorten from four and a half years to something that's a reasonable length of time for help?

I'm happy that 43 days was what our three-year average was when I did the first research.

It can be longer, it can be different.

Some models are delayed response where you go out within a few weeks, you don't go out right at the time.

And this is because we've been doing this now for 30 years.

So we've learned a great deal in those 30 years.

Our average length of time at a scene even is only about 45 minutes.

Just enough time to get to know who's there, meet with them for a little while, hand them the information, make the referral.

But every community that wants a LOSS team has to first say, "What are the resources we already have that we can refer people to?"

- I went to several more LOSS conferences and in 2019, I said, "We've got to do something here in Amarillo, Texas because we just don't have ongoing support groups.

You know, they occur and then they're over, but we need something that's continual and this model is gonna help people."

- Paul and Sarah are absolutely incredible.

So Sarah brought the idea of the LOSS team to the Panhandle Suicide Prevention Coalition right at the same time that she did the House Bill 13 grants were available.

And so I offered to write the grant because that's just part of what we do at Public Health and though if we're able to receive funding here in our community, then we can, you know, that's one step closer to being able to fund the project.

We got the grant like two days after we had our first patient that tested positive for COVID.

- We were some of the first advocates who went on scene.

In fact, I and another young woman were the first people to go on scene and it was actually December 2020 when the world was still crazy.

It was a very hard time and people were very isolated.

Well, that just puts everybody at risk.

Isolation puts everybody at risk.

- As time went on, five years into the grant, we were able to again write that grant for additional funding.

And we also knew that it was time to bring it back under the city of Amarillo under public health's purview.

So we were able to make that transition with family-support services.

(gentle music) - So the Amarillo Area LOSS Team is a community mental health grant funded response team that responds on scene when there's been a death from suicide.

We provide hope, comfort, resources, scene restoration, counseling, peer support groups for those survivors that we meet there on scene, and also for friends and family and neighbors that might be exposed to us a little bit later.

And we call that a delayed call.

We're fortunate enough here in the Amarillo area that we are housed at Public Health, which means it has put our team within the city of Amarillo and we're able to make really great connections with the resources that we need because we partner with law enforcement.

They're the ones that get us the information.

If we didn't have that camaraderie, working together, trust, supporting each other, then we wouldn't get those calls.

And so it's vital that a community work together in that nature so that people who are in the postvention space can arrive on scene.

- When we arrive, oftentimes you got all kinds of vehicles at night with lights on, you got neighbors gathered in the front yard, you got people wanting to see what's going on.

And we go there, we're kind of a calming voice and we visit with the family, we leave the information and then we leave.

This allows the other first responders to do their job, the job they're there to do.

Homicide has to rule out foul play and you want that done, but it means the family may be treated as a suspect.

We're not there to treat you as anything but a person needing help.

- When a LOSS member comes in, typically it's a peer member, meaning it's an individual that has gone through that type of critical incident before.

They can help that family, that coworker, that friend through a very difficult time and provide them those answers to the questions that they don't even know themselves.

- We might talk about things you can do like drink water and suck on peppermints.

We know that if you eat peppermint oil or drink peppermint oil and water, it keeps the esophageal tissue in your throat lubricated because when you cry, you give up that tissue and it makes it hard to swallow when you finally try to eat and then people don't eat like they ought to.

We could talk to them about the importance of being able to sleep as hard as it may be.

We can talk to them about tips that we've learned and we leave that with them written so they can read it over and over so it helps them when they can't remember what that tip was.

- And so we have a binder that has local resources.

The most important thing that we can give is next steps.

If you've not navigated and laid someone to rest, don't have a clue what you would do.

And so we provide those next steps and we provide information on where their loved one will be going as far as the mortuary that will be coming.

We're able to kind of walk them through that, what to expect.

We're able to get them resources as far as community grief support groups, counseling at no cost.

- They help them look around the corner to give them a little peace of mind.

Where in law enforcement, we do a lot of good things well, but it's very challenging in moments like that.

And we have to do it right.

Those memories in a tragic event like that are saved differently than let's say just a normal interaction.

In law enforcement, unfortunately, I've had the opportunity too many death notifications.

And really where that comes from for me is personal.

My uncle died in a line of duty and how that information was provided to my mom, her brother, was very difficult.

She remembers it still to this day.

She remembers the challenges of what was being said and what wasn't being said.

- Suicide is hard for every first responder.

Quite often we find ourselves talking to first responders that have never shared suicides in their family, suicides they never talked about, but they all remember the first one they went to as a professional and what it affect, how it affected them.

- A law enforcement officer, a first responder typically sees anywhere between 200 to 600 critical incidents throughout their lifetime in the career, while a normal person might see two to three in their lifetime.

You never forget them.

You learn to deal with them most of the time, but they stick with you.

What separates how we handle it is really the longevity of our career.

What are our coping skills?

What are our resources that we have to help us through that, right?

- So we find that we are a resource not only to the newly bereaved at the scene, but quite a few first responders.

Why is that important?

First responders have very high-rates of suicide.

They get a lot of trauma exposure and no support afterwards, very little opportunity to debrief, and they end up dying by suicide.

- So I came from Irving down the metroplex, spent 22 years there as well as some time in Cedar Park in central Texas.

I never had that resource.

It's having the ability to have them there with you is hugely valuable for our organization, but on the flip side, it really helps the community.

It helps them take that next step.

- And so law enforcement will call us to the scene.

We gather information on the cause, the method of suicide, because our team is fortunate enough to have a contract with a scene restoration team, and so we're able to offer that at no cost.

One of the biggest reliefs I've ever seen in somebody's worst day is knowing that that piece is taken care of.

And we like to say, "If we don't give anything else, let us give that.

Let us get those resources to you."

And then also the look of when a survivor says, "We're a team of survivors, we've been here."

It's just a whole different energy.

- If we can do that, then that brings some light, some level of hope, some level of actual communication to people.

Hey, there's other people out there who have suffered and know where you are.

They don't know your exact situation.

We're not trying to put ourselves in your place, but we have a commonality of experience.

- The LOSS team really does bring it to a personal level when we're bringing hope and resources to people in the toughest time.

I really do think it changes somebody's view of the city where it's not just the place that you pay your water bill, it's not just the place where you might have to pay your parking ticket or take care of business.

It's where there are matters of the heart that take place too, not just matters of business.

- I'll tell you, any chief out there who's listening take that step, do the research, see if you can't bring that to your community because it's helping change what our community looks like.

- It's a very replicable model, and I think that's what it speaks highly of the model itself and that, it's not.

I mean, it's a special team and a very special group of people that are doing it here in Amarillo, but it can be done in any community.

And really, we hope it's done in every community, every community and every family really deserves a LOSS team in their community.

- Once you've been through a suicide loss and you've worked with a LOSS team, in my eyes, I'm like, "Why isn't there more out there about this team?"

It's just truly amazing.

It's something I wish at the time of my losses I would've had because it would've been very beneficial.

- Our goal is to bring everybody in.

We are the big tent at AAS, and then empower those state and county entities with things like LOSS teams or the ability to conduct psychological autopsies in their own community when there are suicides.

So if we work with those state and county non-independent nonprofits, then we will reach more people.

That's a big part of the strategy that we are implementing now is we've got all these great trainings, we've got all this great information.

How do we get it into the fabric of local communities?

- Singapore asked me to come down and start LOSS teams there.

They didn't have any support groups, so I had to train both support group facilitators and their crisis line workers to be responders.

But then after a few years, the support group people got to the place where they were able to feel, deal, and heal from their loss so that now they could help.

And the first thing they wanted to do, quite a few of them was, "I'd like to be on the LOSS team."

I remember they came to my house and they helped me in the beginning.

I've always wanted to be able to give back what was given to me.

We even won the Golden Rule Award for the work we do.

It is doing unto others what you wish would have been done for you.

And today it can be what was done for you because so many of the people that got help got better, got to that altruistic place where they wanted to make a difference, joined the LOSS team.

- It's very beneficial to me.

I'm, again, as I said, I'm very grateful for the team itself.

I've met enormous amount of people, unfortunately through the process, and I consider them as a dear family to me.

I mean, we've been through the trenches together and it means a lot to me.

- It's never too late.

Yes, we are a on-scene, acute crisis response team, but we're also a delayed bereavement support system for the rest of your life as a survivor.

- I have a grateful opportunity to sit in the back of the room of the conference every year at the national conference and hear people saying, "This has been the most rewarding work I've ever gotten to do.

I'll do this as long as I can.

For me to help somebody in that darkest hour the way I was helped is what gives my life meaning."

- You get in there with a group in the SOS Survivors of Suicide Group, and you share, you're vulnerable, you cry together, you talk about your losses, and you heal together.

It's a very therapeutic process for me personally, and I'm very grateful for the team.

They've are an enormous part of my recovery.

- It's hard to do it.

My first meeting was.

I was scared to death, but now that I've been, I look forward to every Tuesday going, and I look forward to my Thursday nights.

- Remember that leg of the stool that gives your life meaning?

That's what a lot of them begin to say.

LOSS is where I find my supportive community.

Every time we have a LOSS meeting, it's like a reunion.

It gives my life meaning, it takes care of my physical wellbeing, and I sleep like a baby at night.

So I think their four legs of their stool is in strengthened because it didn't get that leg that broke off all the other legs, that mends that stool so that they can be a resource to others, and it changes that legacy that suicide might create.

And that's why postvention is prevention, and not just for the next generation, for all generations.

(gentle music) ♪ The world is finally ♪ gaining color ♪ ♪ The gray has ♪ all washed right away ♪ ♪ The feeling of being broken ♪ ♪ Shattered pieces ♪ lying thin ♪ ♪ Not headed back ♪ in the shadows ♪ ♪ You're right where ♪ you're meant to be ♪ ♪ You follow the path ♪ you were led to ♪ ♪ It led straight to peace ♪ ♪ May not seem like ♪ you'll get there ♪ ♪ But you always have to try ♪ ♪ Trust when the moments right ♪ ♪ Thriving like a tree ♪ reaching the sky ♪ ♪ Finally, I'm growing ♪ ♪ I found my wings ♪ ♪ And now I'm leaving ♪ don't know where I'm going ♪ ♪ Exploring things ♪ I've never done ♪ ♪ Even though like ♪ this unexpected ways ♪ ♪ We all don't understand ♪ ♪ Just make it as ♪ far as you can ♪ ♪ Spread love and not sorrow ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Don't let your ♪ heart get borrowed ♪ ♪ Life is too short ♪ ♪ You're here today.

♪ ♪ Gone tomorrow ♪ ♪ Ooh-ooh-ooh ♪ ♪ You're here today ♪ ♪ Gone tomorrow ♪ ♪ Ooh-Ooh-Ooh ♪ ♪ You're here today ♪ ♪ Gone tomorrow ♪ (soft music)