On Wednesday November 9th, the Key Program held a training on suicide prevention and common diagnoses. I decided to use this as a YDEV event because all youth can have different disorders that not all may know how to deal with or understand. It i . s important for us to recognize signs of different disorders so we can do early interventionsAlso because any youth can be suffering from suicidal thoughts and won't know how to cope by themselves. We as youth workers should know how to help youth when they feel like their less than because of a disorder that they have or when they feel like suicide is the answer. Some of these youth don't have anyone at home who may understand or they feel that they can trust.
As someone who works at the Key Program with “at-risk” youth every day, I can honestly say that my clients are not the easiest to deal with. Some have ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Mood Disorder, Depression, or RAD disorder. All are difficult to deal with especially if you suffer from them. Because of the behaviors that are associated with all of these disorders, it is easy to get very frustrated and not be sensitive to their disorders. This training was a reminder that as someone who works with youth, we have to put our feelings aside and try to be that youth’s allie to help them come up with coping skills when they feel they are losing control.
