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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, March 8, 2007

Suicide prevention training scheduled

By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

The state Department of Health, in collaboration with the Suicide Prevention Task Force and Hawaii S.P.E.A.R. Foundation of America, is conducting suicide prevention training statewide starting this month.

The two-day workshop is geared toward those who may be in contact with suicidal persons, including counselors, clergy, community caregivers, crisis workers, law enforcement, psychologists, school administrators, social workers and teachers.

The Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) prepares people to recognize and assess the risk of an individual in crisis and teaches them to provide suicide prevention first-aid, thereby minimizing the risk of suicide.

Scheduled workshops are:

i March 27-28 and May 17-18 on the Big Island;

i April 3-4 on Kaua'i;

i April 9-10 on Maui;

i June 27-28 on O'ahu.

The workshops run from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Participants need to register in advance and commit to the two full days.

Suicide is the single leading cause of injury death in Hawai'i, according to the DOH. Hawai'i loses 128 lives to suicide every year and an additional 870 people are hospitalized after attempting to take their own lives.

For registration and information, call 734-9256 or 586-5939 or visit www.hawaii.gov/doh.

Reach Catherine E. Toth at 954-0664 or ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com. Read her blog, The Daily Dish, at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.