1. How to be Present for Those Experiencing Suicidal Ideation or Suicide Loss

5 (1 vote)

Includes a Live Web Event on 05/01/2025 at 11:15 AM (EDT)

Only available as part of a package

What do you do or say when someone you’re working with has experienced a loss by suicide? Suicide disproportionately impacts white males over the age of 65. In this session you will learn strategies to support prevention efforts, recognize suicide triggers in a trauma-informed way and navigate sensitive conversations.

Learning Objectives:

Identify strategies to support suicide prevention efforts.
Recognize suicide triggers in a trauma-informed way.
Employ effective communication strategies to navigate conversations about suicide loss.

Eligible for 1 CE with live participation

Dr. Maryann Mason

Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine

Northwestern University

Maryann Mason holds a doctorate in Sociology from Loyola University of Chicago. Dr. Mason is currently an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine where she serves as Injury and Violence Research Director of the Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics located in the Institute for Public Health and Medicine in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. Her work concentrates on injury control and violence prevention with significant experience in surveillance system management, population-based research in the areas of violent death, opioid overdose and community-engagement and qualitative methods. Dr. Mason became Principal Investigator of the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System in 2014 when Illinois joined the National Violent Death Reporting System. In 2019, she established the Illinois Statewide Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System.

Kristi Horner

Founder and Executive Director

Courage to Caregivers

Kristi Horner is the Founder and Executive Director for Courage to Caregivers. She is a certified, through Ohio's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Family Peer Support Specialist and NAMI Ohio Trainer for this program. She is also credentialed as a Prevention Specialist and Question Persuade Refer (QPR) Instructor.

In 2014, she lost her brother to suicide. She had been one of her brother’s mental illness long-distance caregivers for four years. He lived with depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. As someone who supported someone she loved very much, living with mental illness, she knew there had to be a better way to support mental illness caregivers and the idea for Courage to Caregivers was born!

Shannon Ortiz

Founder

Light after Loss

Shannon is the Founder of Light after Loss @ The Hope and Healing Center, and now The Traumatic Loss Care (TLC) Institute. Shannon lost her husband, Craig, to suicide on August 3, 2016, leaving her and their two young girls behind. She was the Director of Counseling Services at The University of Mount Union and the President of NAMI Stark County at the time. She was certainly no stranger to mental health and suicide as it was something she helped people cope with every day. Despite that, the last thing she ever dreamed of was being on the other side of that coin. Craig to manage his mental health and related symptoms for many years, but just like everyone else, she never thought he would become a statistic. In 2018, Shannon stepped down from her positions at Mount Union and NAMI Stark County to heal; to help her two young daughters heal. After being a counselor for nearly 10 years, she also learned that the grief and trauma related to loss survivors are unique to only those who have experienced it. Survivors are at an increased risk of taking their own lives often due to unresolved emotions surrounding the unimaginable. As a result of her own difficult and lonely journey through suicide loss, she wants to be a light for others to spread hope for healing.

Lawrence “Laurie” Baron

Caregiver

Courage to Caregivers

Laurie Baron is a retired history professor who taught at St. Lawrence University from 1975 until 1988 and San Diego State University from 1988 until 2012. He has authored and edited four books and served as an interviewer and the historian for The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. (Free Press: 1988). He has been a caregiver for his wife during several depressive episodes that led to suicide attempts. He has benefited greatly from participating in a support group run by Courage to Caregivers