Set for this month is Michigan’s largest annual conference on suicide prevention and education.
The Kevin’s Song 10th annual Suicide Prevention Education Summit will be held January 22 and 23 in Plymouth with attendees from 27 states and from all over Michigan.
Kevin’s Song Director Jennifer Margraf tells us the event, called “The Power of 10: A Legacy of Hope, A Future of Possibility,” will bring together experts to share practical, evidence-based strategies. The first day will focus on helping students.
“We’re bringing in speakers who are doing research and doing direct work with that age group, which is incredibly vast,” Margraf said. “What you’re trying to deal with, someone in early elementary versus late high school, early college, are going to be vastly different messages.”
Margraf says one of the key things the summit seeks to address is how different populations can be helped in different ways, whether the differences are age-related or even geographic.
“If you’re talking to someone in Southwest Michigan, the needs and the thought processes and the support that is needed is going to be different than where we are here in the Metro Detroit area and in the U.P.”
Margraf says suicide affects just about everyone in Michigan.
“Every day we lose six Michiganders to suicide, and it should not be that much. And we’re losing folks from every population in our state, our veterans, our indigenous tribal people, our farmers.”
The second day of the summit will cover a wide range of topics, including Extreme Risk Protection Orders in Michigan, rural and workplace suicide prevention, THC use, and the ethical use of artificial intelligence in behavioral risk assessment. It will be strictly in-person.
Margraf says Kevin’s Song is a non-profit seeking to fight suicide, started by Gail and John Urso, who lost their son to suicide in 2013.
You can learn more about the summit right here.
