COEUR d'ALENE - The person most likely to prevent you from dying by suicide is someone you know.

So says Dr. Paul Quinnett, a Spokane psychologist and nationally recognized suicide prevention expert whose theories are at the heart of a community-wide suicide prevention effort now under way in Coeur d'Alene.

It is a movement to increase suicide risk awareness and train ordinary citizens to identify suicidal behaviors and get people at risk the help they need.

The effort comes amid growing concern in the health community about the high rate of suicide in Kootenai County, and in the wake of four suicides committed between July 2010 and last June by students who attended schools in the Coeur d'Alene district.

"We are taking this on, in conjunction with a large community group, as we were dismayed to find, not only because some of our own students took their own lives last year, that Coeur d'Alene and Kootenai County has a significantly higher suicide rate than the national average, so this is a community issue," said schools Superintendent Hazel Bauman, at the most recent school board meeting.

Last spring, the school district engaged Quinnett to train key staff members - school counselors, psychologists and nurses - how to use QPR. The acronym stands for Question, Persuade and Refer, a three-step suicide prevention technique developed by Quinnett. High school students, with parental permission, will receive QPR training later this fall, after all 1,200 district staff members have been trained.

"This is a research-based, proven program that really does get help to students and even adults in the community who are struggling with either mental illness or just the pressures of life," Bauman said.

Suicide came on the radar for staff at Kootenai Health earlier this year, following a survey they conducted last fall to take the pulse of the local population's health needs.

"Mental health - this is the one that really stood out for us," said hospital spokeswoman, Kim Anderson.

They compared local data with statistics from Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and national data and found that in addition to what they already knew, that Idaho has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, the suicide rate in the state's northern counties is even higher, and it has been going up steadily in recent years.

According to the most recent vital statistics available from Idaho Health and Welfare, the national suicide rate in 2009 was 11.5 per 100,000 United States residents. The rate in Idaho was 19.9 per 100,000 residents.

Of the 307 suicides that took place in Idaho in 2009, 52 of those were in the state's five northern counties. The Panhandle's suicide rate is now 24.3 per 100,000 residents, more than double the nation's rate.

Kootenai County residents represent 30 of those 52 suicides. The county's suicide rate of 21.7 per 100,000 citizens is nearly double the nation's rate, and is up from the 2008 suicide rate of 17.8.

Kootenai Health professionals and Coeur d'Alene School District officials met in June with other local agencies that work to provide health services. The group, named Community Linkages, is now engaged in a long-term collaborative effort to combat suicide in North Idaho.

"The hospital is preparing the mental health community to be ready to handle the referrals," said Kootenai Health's Kim Anderson.

But the relationship between the school district and local mental health professionals began deepening much earlier, in April when two Lake City High School students took their own lives within weeks of each other.

"We had an amazing outpouring of support from the mental health community and Kootenai Health," said school district spokeswoman, Laura Rumpler. "They reached out and helped shore up our administrators and crisis counselors, to let them know they are not alone."

Dr. Quinnett provided the roughly one-hour QPR training to some school district staff in August.

He spoke Wednesday to members of the mental health community who gathered to hear him on the Kootenai Medical Center campus.

Quinnett told the crowd of 110 that the result of training citizens in the QPR method of suicide reduction will result in more people seeking mental health crisis intervention services. That's good, he said, because most people at risk of suicide don't go to the emergency room or to a counselor.

"The people who are most at risk are the least likely to ask for help," Quinnett said. "If we require them to ask for help, they will continue to die."

He said many mental health specialists are under-educated and undertrained in suicide risk identification and prevention, and asked the group whether any of them had received any comprehensive suicide prevention training. Just one person, a graduate student from the University of Idaho, raised her hand.

QPR, an emergency mental health intervention technique, sounds like CPR, an emergency physical health technique, Quinnett said, and that is no coincidence. He likened using QPR to any first aid measure used until medical professionals can take over.

"If you prevent suicidal behavior, you also prevent other violence," Quinnett said.

By creating awareness and talking about mental health, the barriers to mental health treatment come down, he said.

The United States Air Force used a program similar to Quinnett's QPR system, and during a six-year period saw the suicide rate drop by 33 percent, homicides went down by 51 percent and serious family violence dropped by 54 percent.

Dr. Quinnett told The Press that higher-than-average suicide rates are found in many Rocky Mountain states, and no one is quite sure why.

"Among the reasons put forward by experts are lack of access to high quality mental health services, the western attitude 'I can handle this on my own!' coupled with difficulty in asking for professional help, and easy access to unsecured firearms," Quinnett reported. "Most suicide deaths in America are by males using a firearm, frequently with alcohol on board. A high joblessness rate and boom-and-bust industries like mining and timber add to the risk factor picture."

Need help now?

• Region 1 Mental Health Services

Serving Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Kootenai and Shoshone counties

• 24-hour crisis lines: Adults (208) 769-1406 or (888) 769-1405; Children (208) 769-1515 or (866) 769-1543

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (800) 273-TALK (8255) or (800)-SUICIDE (784-2433)

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/