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Teen Suicide Prevention in Nantucket E-mail
In the past eight months, 2 student suicides have occurred in Nantucket and the island’s mental health professionals are searching for ways in order to aid the island’s troubled teens who are experiencing emotional or social struggles.
Nantucket may be known for its paradise vacations but those who work with the island’s troubled teens know that confronting the teenagers’ issues must be dealt with in order to prevent any further suicides among their youth.
Peter Swenson, director of Family and Children's Services of Nantucket, said "We are hearing from a lot of kids that there is nowhere to go to deal with issues. A lot of kids are expressing that there is no safe place to go if they are concerned about a friend or fellow student."
A Student Assistance Program will be formed with the expertise of representatives from mental health organizations of the island. This program will have a coordinator who will particularly handle suicide prevention and offer support to those students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

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Swenson said “Effective prevention programming goes back to the womb. We need to educate parents. Kindergarten through fifth grade, we're not going to talk about suicide, but making healthy choices. In middle school, we'll focus on bullying, racial issues and drugs."
Swenson has observed that teenage bullies and their victims have a higher risk of drug or alcohol abuse and an increased rate of suicide.
"From what we are hearing, there is bullying in the elementary school as well. Shy kids, introverted kids, kids who speak with an accent, fat kids, kids who are too smart," he said.
"We have 3½ staff people who work with kids through the system from this agency to deal with significant mental health and addiction problems,” added Swenson. The help of others would help the department of guidance as it deals with these teens and their issues. 
Suicide isn’t the only issue that teens in Nantucket are faced with—eating disorders, substance abuse, bullying, and self-harm are all issues that they face.
Swenson commented on a national trend observed in this recent decade, "Boys are rapidly catching up to girls in the incidence of eating disorders and girls are outstretching boys with alcohol abuse. We want to strengthen a young person's resiliency and we have to make sure we are plugging kids into the ways for kids to express themselves such as in athletics, arts and music."
 
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