September is Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month
Save the date: September 5-11, 2021
Join us for our 5-day 4th annual Social Media Campaign and candlelight memorial vigil.
About the Maternal Suicide Awareness Campaign
2020 Mom launched the Maternal Suicide Awareness Campaign in 2018 to remember moms lost to maternal suicide, and to raise awareness about maternal suicide, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. For years there were misconceptions about pregnancy and the postpartum period being protective against depression and suicide. We know now that this simply isn’t true and it’s time to raise awareness about maternal depression and psychosis, leading causes of maternal suicide.
Learn more about the moms who have lost their lives to maternal suicide here.
2020 Mom and our partner, Zero Suicide Institute, learned and discussed the national Zero Suicide framework, a system-wide, organizational commitment to safer suicide care in health and behavioral health care systems.
The framework is based on the realization that suicidal individuals often fall through the cracks in a sometimes fragmented and distracted health care system. A systematic approach to quality improvement in these settings is both available and necessary.
Inspired by health care systems that had seen dramatic reductions in patient suicide, the Zero Suicide began as a key concept of the 2012 National Strategy for Suicide Prevention and quickly became a priority of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance), and a project of Education Development Center's Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), supported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
The U.S. health delivery system was already struggling to effectively address and prevent suicide, now with pandemic stressors expected to increase suicide rates, health systems can take action by adopting the Zero Suicide framework and tools.
Moderator:
Joy Burkhard, MBA
Executive Director, 2020 Mom
Panelists:
Julie Goldstein
Director, Zero Suicide Institute
Edwin Boudreaux, PhD
Professor, Departments of Emergency Medicine, Psychiatry, and Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Webinar
Maternal Suicide: What All Providers and Advocates Should Know
September 29, 2020
Hosted by:
Presenters:
Susanna Trost, MPH
Maternal Suicide Stats
CDC Maternal Mortality Prevention Team, Division of Reproductive Health
Jennifer Beauregard, PhD
CDC Maternal Mortality Prevention Team, Division of Reproductive Health
Mary Claire Kimmel, MD
Maternal Mental Health
Suicide Nuances
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Karen Tabb Dina, PhD
Differences in Maternal Suicidal
Thoughts in BIPOC Community
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rachael Kenter, MPH, CHES
Upstream Prevention
& Zero Suicide Initiative
Suicide Prevention Resource Center
Shye Louis, M.Ed.
Crisis Prevention
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
In this webinar, we covered the latest on suicide prevention and facts about maternal suicide, including:
A general overview of suicide and COVID related increases
Maternal mental health statistics including maternal suicide
General crisis prevention efforts
Suicide prevention efforts
Click here to watch the webinar recording. Enter your name and email address to access the webinar (even if you've previously registered).
View presentation slides here.
The #KnowMomFacts toolkit is the first public resource of its kind, created specifically to shed light on risks and facts surrounding maternal suicide. The toolkit contains facts, social media messaging and graphics about maternal suicide for participants to use to educate and raise awareness about maternal suicide.
Partners
Maternal Suicide Awareness Week Campaign 2020
There were two parts to the campaign:
#KnowMomFacts Social Media Awareness Campaign
September 7-11, 2020 – 2020 Mom shared Maternal Suicide Awareness facts and resources on social media: Facebook: @2020mom, Twitter: @2020MomProject, Instagram @2020_Mom, and LinkedIn @2020Mom#MomsAreNotImmune Remembrance Virtual Candlelight Vigil
At sunset, Thursday, September 10, 2020.
Our 3rd annual Maternal Suicide Awareness Campaign was seen by over 1 million people on social media. That's double the exposure we had last year. We shared messaging that shed light on risks and facts about maternal depression and psychosis, leading causes of maternal suicide, in an effort to raise awareness and combat the stigma and shame of Maternal Mental Health disorders.
Thank you to all who participated in this year's campaign. Here's a sampling of the posts:
The Remembrance Vigil
#MomsAreNotImmune Remembrance Vigil
We encouraged everyone to share with their social network and participate in the Remembrance Vigil on Thursday, September 10, 2020, by posting a picture of them lighting a candle at sunset using #MomsAreNotImmune.
Katie Crenshaw, TheBlueDotProject’s 2020 Spokesperson, and Steven D’Achille of the Alexis Joy Foundation, hosted the vigil and lit candles to honor Steven's wife and all of the mothers lost to maternal suicide. While watching we encouraged viewers to read the names of the mothers lost on our Remembrance Wall.
The vigil was broadcasted on Facebook Live and on the 2020 Mom IGTV channel.
Suicide Prevention Awareness Week
National Suicide Prevention Week (September 5-11, 2021) is an annual campaign hosted by the American Association of Suicidology in the United States to inform and engage health professionals and the general public about suicide prevention and warning signs of suicide. Learn more here.
Other Ways to Be Involved:
Consider wearing your purple ribbon and blue dot button during Suicide Awareness Week or Maternal Suicide Awareness Day or just wear a blue dot button. Take a picture of yourself wearing the ribbon and/or blue dot and tag 2020 Mom.
Get your blue dot button here.
About World Suicide Prevention Day:
World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) is an awareness day observed on September 10th every year, in order to provide worldwide commitment and action to prevent suicides, with various activities around the world since 2003. The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) to host World Suicide Prevention Day.