Weekly News Roundup July 12-18, 2021
Every day we scan news headlines and social media for items of interest to the field of suicide prevention. Here’s what we found last week:
Giants minor leaguer who attempted suicide last year retires – Washington Post
July 16, 2021
Drew Robinson, San Francisco Giants minor league player, survived a suicide attempt last year that resulted in the removal of his right eye. Robinson did return to play with the minor league, but has since decided to retire from baseball to become a mental health advocate. “Over the last year I’ve promoted self-love and self-care and the Giants are offering me the opportunity to transition to a role as a mental-health advocate,” Robinson wrote in a Twitter post. “I couldn’t be more excited to remain in the game that saved my life. I remember the day after my suicide attempt, the first thought I had toward choosing to live came from thinking about playing baseball again. I did that, with one eye, and I’m grateful for the time I spent with the River Cats and the 11 incredible years I spent with the Rangers and Cardinals.”
Tataskweyak battling suicide crisis and bootleggers, says councillor – Toronto Star
July 15, 2021
Tataskweyak Cree Nation in northern Manitoba has declared a state of emergency after having several young people die by or attempt suicide over the past 14 months. One band councillor who preferred not to be named said that drug and alcohol use are causing the crisis, “The problem is a mental health problem, but it’s being created from other things. There is a high increase of people using, and there is an increase in young people using, and what it is doing is creating this crisis in our community. That is the biggest problem we are dealing with, it’s the amount of alcohol and drugs being brought into the community, and pushed onto young people and the more it comes in, the more it pushes people over to the dark side. The young people are being exposed to drugs and alcohol, and it really feels like the community is at war with the bootleggers and the drug dealers.”
Digital Age Offers New Promise For Suicide Screening, Risk Assessment And Treatment – Forbes
July 15, 2021
One provider of behavioural health management services in the US has announced that they will be collaborating with a digital health technologies company to apply “strategic approaches in telehealth to reduce the incidence of suicide among its covered members (more than 40 million people).” These strategic approaches include the identification of people who may be at risk of suicide and then offering technology-based intervention. It’s hoped that these approaches will enhance the standard of care and reduce “some of the variability associated with psychiatric and self-reported patient assessments.”
Anthony Bourdain’s Inner Circle Tries to Understand His Suicide in Roadrunner – Vanity Fair
July 18, 2021
A new documentary biopic, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain examines the life of Bourdain, a former chef and star of CNN’s Parts Unknown. “Part of making the film was trying to understand his suicide, but also to understand who he was, and what made him tick. I went into it really just wanting to know who this guy was,” said filmmaker Morgan Neville. “I think what drove his unhappiness was that he was somebody who had been running away from his deeper problems for a long time,” speculates Neville. Neville interviewed many people who were close to Bourdain for the documentary.