On Thursday, Katrina Sunivelle, director of Contact Helpline in Columbus, spoke to volunteers and representatives of local organizations at On Common Ground: Building Partnerships through Networking, an event sponsored by Community Outreach.
Sunivelle spoke about the suicide rate in Mississippi, as well as what Contact Helpline does to combat suicide.
Contact Helpline is a local organization which individuals can call and have someone to talk to when they’re having emotional crises. The organization has served the Columbus area since 1975. Callers talk to trained volunteers who listen and suggest resources the callers can use depending on their circumstances. Sometimes the helpline provides temporary housing or gets the callers a hotel. The organization also has a list of elderly or disabled clients who live alone and who volunteers call every day to make sure they have someone to talk to and that they don’t need help.
Sunivelle said Mississippi has the 30th highest suicide rate in the country and that suicide was the third leading cause of death among Mississippians between ages 15-24 and the fourth leading cause of death between ages 25-44 between 1999 and 2010. In that time, there were 388 confirmed suicides in Mississippi, a rate of 13.1 per 100,000 deaths.
In 2014, Contact Helpline in Columbus received 9,656 crisis calls, including 139 suicide calls, Sunivelle said. That year the organization also made 26,043 reassurance calls and 141 follow-up calls with certain clients who needed them.
Sunivelle also talked about the database the organization uses which includes a list of local resources to help those in need in the community. The information in the system is constantly being updated, Sunivelle said, which is why it is important for community organizations like those with representatives in the audience to share information and resources.
Following Sunivelle’s talk, Community Outreach director Glenda Buckhalter asked representatives from other organizations to discuss what resources they provide. Volunteers and representatives from the Red Cross, the Municipal school district, the Columbus Police Department, the Columbus Municipal Drug Program and other organizations like churches were present. They discussed everything from what to do in cases of homelessness or drug addiction to the best ways to pool resources among nonprofits.
This is the second gathering of organizations which Community Outreach has put together to encourage local nonprofits and other organizations to network and pool their resources in order to better serve those in need in the community. Next month, Community Outreach hopes to hold another meeting which will address the issue of unemployment in the community, Buckhalter said.
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