LOUISVILLE Ky. — Grant funding is allowing Louisville’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Health Advisory Board the opportunity to invite community members to earn suicide prevention certification training. 

What You Need To Know

  • Louisville’s National Alliance on Mental Illness and Health Advisory Board are teaming up to address suicide rates

  • Grant funding is allowing the organizations to train hundreds of community in suicide prevention

  • The two-hour free training is ongoing through October

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Question. Persuade. Refer. (QPR) is a technique to effectively communicate with individuals having suicidal or self-harm thoughts to ease them in the right direction. 

"The goal is to work to question how they are feeling, their plans maybe talk about their plans. Persuade them to postpone action and lastly to refer them to appropriate help,” says Louisville NAMI executive director Nancy Brook.

Fifteen people with different backgrounds, speaking different languages and from different neighborhood will be trained to turn around and train 1,500 other to be community heroes. 

"By working on meeting some of those diverse and ethnic communities who live in these neighborhoods we hope to reduce the barriers that they might be experiencing in gaining access to training and hopefully reach those most in need,” says Brook. 

NAMI is hopeful that the free virtual training will be embraced and lead to a decrease in the number of suicides. 

"At some point in your life, anyone, you will face a crisis situation where you see something hear something or just feel in your gut that something is wrong and with this training you’ll have the opportunity to actually do something about it,” says NAMI team member Rhonda Blandford. 

Blandford is a former nurse who has had her fair share of experience with mental health and suicide ideation at work but it’s an issue she’s had to deal with even after she clocks out.

"When I was a teenager I tried to commit suicide,” says Blandford. “Now, I have a 13-year-old daughter who has also attempted suicide. She’s currently in an SI (suicide ideation) unit now.”

This is Blandford’s daughter’s fourth hospitalization within the last year for suicide ideation.

Blandford is QPR suicide prevention certified and knows the impact it can make in the life of family, friends and even complete strangers. 

"I helped save a life in my own neighborhood and it was a neighbor that I had never met before, but I knew she was in trouble, and it empowered me to actually speak to her and just walking down the street and continuing on because too many times I think that’s what we do because we’re afraid because we don’t know what to say,” says Blandford. 

Blandford is upgrading her QPR certified title to QPR certified trainer. 

If you would like to become a trainer or community hero, click here. Training is ongoing through October. 

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