Suicide Prevention

Woman’s Voice: The Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition is a diverse group of dedicated community members united around the goal of reducing substance use in Lenawee County. LSAPC members work collaboratively to engage and educate the community in order to promote a healthy Lenawee.

Kathy Williams: This is Kathy Williams. And with me on tonight’s program is Matt Raad. He is the community engagement and partnership coordinator out of the Ann Arbor VA. Matt, welcome to the program.

Matt Raad: Thank you, Kathy. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Kathy Williams: So, tell our listeners a little bit about what your job entails. How connected are you with Lenawee County and our surrounding area here?

Matt Raad: Yeah, so, as a community partnership and engagement coordinator out of the Ann Arbor, VA, we cover about 15 to 19 counties, depending on the day.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Matt Raad: But we are part of the suicide prevention team.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Matt Raad: And we’re part of what’s called the Community-Based Intervention for Suicide Prevention. So we’re part of the suicide prevention program that works very closely in the communities that we work in or that we cover. And in Lenawee County, we’ve developed the Lenawee Counties Veterans Coalition.  Lenawee County Veterans Coalition. And the whole, the whole goal of this is to try to take an upstream approach to suicide prevention.  So, the idea behind this is that if we can help to enrich the lives of the veterans on the local level, where they live with local solutions, the idea is hopefully we can hopefully prevent a suicide from happening if we can get someone connected to things that could help.

Kathy Williams: So, so many times we hear that, that veterans have a hard time reaching out to begin with. How are you making that effort? How are you, are you going where they’re more likely to be? How are you making that relationship happen?

Matt Raad: Yeah, that’s one of the, one of the biggest challenges I think.  You know that really anyone working with veterans has, is how to encourage somebody to reach out.  And that is one of the biggest things that we are trying to accomplish is of course doing that. And on the flip side is also equipping the community to be there and to know sort of how to also reach out and provide support if they notice some things that may be going on with someone, whether it be a friend or family member or someone at the store.  You know, the idea is not only just for, you know, our group to know what to do, how to approach somebody, but we also want to help to do whatever we can in the community through different types of education, awareness, reducing stigma.  But to answer your question, you know, we’re working with a lot of the local veteran service organizations. We’re really trying to get veterans involved in this group.

Kathy Williams: Okay.

Matt Raad: And the idea behind that is pretty obvious, you know, we want veterans to be helping other veterans out, but anybody can be a part of this coalition.

Kathy Williams: How would they find out about the coalition if they wanted to get involved?

Matt Raad: Yeah, they can reach directly out to myself, or, Austin See who is the leader of the group. My email I could provide…

Kathy Williams: Okay, go ahead.

Matt Raad: matthew.raad@va.gov.  Or my phone number (734) 968-9318. And I’m certainly, you know, always open to people coming, calling.  Anyone’s welcome to come be a supporter, whether they’re veteran or not, family, friends. So this is a group that’s here to serve not only veterans in Lenawee County, but also any active military, guard reserves, anything along those lines. So there’s kind of this no wrong door philosophy we kind of have in here.

Kathy Williams: Oh, okay.  Do they have a social media presence? That’s easy to pop in to yet?

Matt Raad: Soon to come.

Kathy Williams: Okay. Soon to come.

Matt Raad: Soon to come.  So we’ve been around for just about five months or so.

Kathy Williams: Oh, okay.

Matt Raad: Just building the foundation of the group and yeah. So all of the, you know, typical like social media presence, yeah.  We are…

Kathy Williams: Still building that.

Matt Raad: We’re building it and it’ll be there. It’ll come.

Kathy Williams: Okay. Okay.  Well, Matt, a lot of, I know the program is sponsored by the Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition and so there’s a lot of substance abuse, probably that goes on, we believe, you know, in all kinds of suicides. Are you finding that’s a fact with veterans as well?

Matt Raad: Sure. Yeah, definitely. You know, and working with the Lenawee County Substance Abuse Coalition, the Prevention Coalition in particular, you know, the work there is definitely focused around that. We know that veterans or anybody who has a substance use disorder is at a higher risk for suicide, especially opioid use disorder. And now we’re seeing opioid use disorder deaths, overdose deaths skyrocket right now, along with stimulant related overdose deaths as well for many different reasons. But yeah, so, that’s definitely something that we take really seriously and we want to be able to provide anybody with support that finds them self in that situation and looking for help or just to equip even families, cause it is not just a single person’s issue. It’s generally something that impacts the entire family.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Matt Raad: So working with the Prevention Coalition has been great. We, you know, it’s kind of, the work kind of goes hand in hand. You know, anybody who’s at risk of a potential overdose or anyone who has a substance use disorder is at a higher risk for suicide as well.  So we know that if we can have an impact in one area, inadvertently overflows.

Kathy Williams: Overflows.

Matt Raad: It impacts the other. Yeah.

Kathy Williams: Well, and I think you’re doing a great job too with, by connecting to all the different organizations, cause you’re not really duplicating services, you’re just trying to link better to reach more people with a consistent message I guess.

Matt Raad: Yes, exactly. Yeah, definitely collaborative, not competitive.

Kathy Williams: Correct.

Matt Raad: We, we’re literally a group of people coming together with no other purpose other than to help serve and help veterans in the community here, so definitely not competing for anything. And in fact, we’ve really collaborated with a lot of the local agencies and social service agencies and community members too.

Kathy Williams: Right.

Matt Raad: So, it’s been great and Lenawee definitely knows how to connect and collaborate really well, which has been a blessing.

Kathy Williams: It’s a unique, a very unique group, you know, logistically and such, that just really has a huge hearts for helping people.

Matt Raad: It… that has been very apparent. Yeah. And, and it’s so refreshing.  It is truly refreshing and it kind of goes into our philosophy that, you know, a lot of times when people think about suicide prevention, we think it’s something for a counselor to work out or a psychiatrist or something. But the truth is, you know, we can’t do it on our own, you know, it really does take a community and to have the resources there and people willing to assist and then truly that’s our philosophy. Suicide prevention is everyone’s business.

Kathy Williams: Yes.

Matt Raad: And, you know, hopefully if we can provide some trainings and some education and some support and awareness in our communities and let people know that we’re here and we’re able to help in any way we can, I think that could go a long way.

Kathy Williams: I agree. I agree. Well, Matt, we want to thank you for stepping in and talking with us and wish you all the best in the future.

Matt Raad: Thank you, Kathy.  Appreciate it.

Kathy Williams: You’re welcome.

Woman’s Voice: Thank you for listening. This information has been provided by the Lenawee Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. Supported by funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration.  New messages air on the first and third Monday of each month at 6:15 p.m. You can listen to this program as a podcast under the audio tab on WLEN.com and listen and gather more information at DrugPreventionLenawee.com.