Parent: More needs to be done for suicide prevention

ENGLEWOOD — As Lemon Bay High School students mourn, Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office is keeping the details of a teenager’s death secret.

On Thursday, the Sun made a public records request for the incident report regarding the Englewood student who committed suicide. CCSO sent a four-page heavily redacted report revealing no information, including the age or gender of the student.

CCSO said it was keeping the information away from the public because the case is still under investigation. Officials, however, refused to provide the Florida exemption for not releasing unprotected information such as the name, age and gender.

With no protocol in place to deal with student suicides, CCSO sometimes provides information and other times does not.

CCSO did notify the Charlotte County School District of the suicide two hours after it happened on Wednesday night, according to Mike Riley, school district spokesperson. Lemon Bay High School principal Bob Bedford was able to brief his staff about the situation so they could help students who needed counseling to talk about the boy’s death. Bedford also recorded a message to parents that school administrators sent out around 4 p.m. on Thursday.

“We have to make sure we have all of the right information,” Riley said. “We don’t want to do anything that will offend the family. We can only go by the information provided to us by the sheriff’s office.”

Riley said there’s nothing that can be done to prevent inaccurate information from being released on social media sites. “Sometimes a friend will find something out from the family and put it online much faster than we will,” he said. “We will not release anything until we know it’s accurate, even if it takes us longer.”

Riley said a crisis team was immediately set up at Lemon Bay High School on Thursday and anyone can go and speak to a counselor, if needed. They will remain at the school through the last day of school next Thursday.

Some parents say not enough is being done to help students and families in Englewood.

“I study suicide rates,” said Tomi Tusia, a parent who has her Ph.D. in anthropology. “It’s alarming here. The national suicide rate is 13 for every 100,000 people. Lemon Bay High School only has 1,560 students and there’s been one or two suicides here each year for the past few years. That’s almost 18 times the amount of the U.S. average for that age group. There’s something very wrong here. Something more needs to be done at the school level.”

Riley said the school district has a parent night in the beginning of the school year for high school students. A suicide prevention session is available for parents. At the middle school level, a licensed mental health counselor gives a class on suicide prevention and coping skills.

“This is not a Lemon Bay High School problem,” Riley said. “This is an Englewood community problem. Every student from elementary school up knows there is help available for them for suicide. Our teachers have in-service training. They aren’t trained the same way as a guidance counselor is, but they will send a student to talk to a guidance counselor for help. Those counselors work to get the family counseling outside of school if needed.

“We do a lot to help students and families because we do care.”

Tusia said with summer coming, some students will be home alone and feeling confused or filled with grief over the recent suicide of their 15-year-old friend.

“One thing parents can do is to not dismiss their child’s feelings,” she said. “Some parents are dismissive about their teenager’s concerns. The thing is that problem is a big deal to the child. If they can’t talk about what’s bothering them and be taken serious, they bottle them up, become depressed and in crisis.”

To combat myths about suicide and depression, Joan and Ed Morgan of North Port started a group recently after their daughter Holly Fisher committed suicide. They’ve invited anyone interested in talking about how to prevent suicide to come to their meetings. The next meeting topic is to develop an action plan to address the Mental Health Crisis. The meeting is 6 p.m. on May 30 at North Port City Hall, 4970 City Hall Blvd.

There’s also a Facebook page, Saving Lives ~ Suicide Prevention Englewood, FL Area, for individuals to share their thoughts, experiences or ideas on how to help save students in Englewood.

Email: eallen@sun-herald.com

“One thing parents can do is to not dismiss their child’s feelings. Some parents are dismissive about their teenager’s concerns. The thing is that problem is a big deal to the child. If they can’t talk about what’s bothering them and be taken serious, they bottle them up, become depressed and in crisis”

— Tomi Tusia, ?Lemon Bay High School parent

“One thing parents can do is to not dismiss their child’s feelings. Some parents are dismissive about their teenager’s concerns. The thing is that problem is a big deal to the child. If they can’t talk about what’s bothering them and be taken serious, they bottle them up, become depressed and in crisis.”

— Tomi Tusia, ?Lemon Bay High School parent