Signs with suicide prevention hotline information will soon go up in some areas of Naperville parks/trails.
A joint task force of Linden Oaks Behavioral Health, the Naperville Park District, the City of Naperville, and the forest preserve districts of DuPage and Will counties have launched “Operation Disrupt” as means to be proactive in suicide prevention.
The new program mined police and fire department record data to identify locations where suicide attempts have occurred in the past and areas where suicide attempts could occur in the future.
The Naperville Park District will initially install six signs over the next few days, park district police officer and operation coordinator Thomas Wronski said. While the signs will be in isolated areas of these parks, they are intended to be visible to passersby.
“It’s important people know about this, primarily because we want people who may be contemplating (suicide) that we want to help them and we have officers who want to help,” he said.
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These signs will have Operation Disrupt on them, phone and online contact information for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and the Crisis Text Line contact information. In the park district’s case, the signs will also read that “this area patrolled by Naperville Park District Police.”
“We see this as a component (of our job) that is practical and that we can move with quickly,” Wronski said.
Representatives from each of these agencies welcomed the initiative’s launch in a news release.
“Suicide and deaths of despair are at epidemic levels across the United States right now,” said Dr. Jerome Kaul, lead clinical therapist for Linden Oaks, in the release. The agencies partnered with Kaul on Operation Disrupt.
“It is vitally important that the mental health profession partner with law enforcement, park districts and forest preserve districts on practical measures that can be taken to disrupt suicide attempts and save lives,” he added.
“After hearing about the increase in suicides among high school students, we wanted to participate in raising awareness about this serious issue and to do our part toward opening up the lines of communication related to prevention,” said Forest Preserve District of Will County Police Chief/Public Safety Administrator Tracy Chapman in the release.
Wronski said along with the signs, park district officers will undergo ‘in-the-moment’ training to identify and assist people they may see on patrol who are suicidal or in need of assistance.
This form of training is intended to assist someone immediately, said Wronski. This could be as simple as asking someone some questions.
“This isn’t training like in a school or a wider environment. This is training for police on what to do, how to spot someone in the moment in a park or trail,” he said.
The park district employs three full-time and fifteen part-time officers, Wronski said. Some have crisis intervention training already, he said. The Operation Disrupt partnership makes additional tools and resources for park district officers available from Naperville police and the other partners.
In the announcement, Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres said “this is a tremendous opportunity to use data and to work collaboratively to address a very serious problem that’s impacting communities across the country, including our own.”
“Our officers continue to respond to so many calls stemming from mental health-related crises involving youth, and this program’s emphasis on data and proactive policing is an innovative way to potentially make a real impact in our community,” Arres said.