Answering the cry for help—now in Spanish

Suicide is a universal problem—but when it comes to crisis help lines, suicide prevention is far from an international language.

That’s about to change as Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, the Westside’s biggest mental health service provider, begins offering extensive Spanish-language coverage on its 24-hour crisis line this week.

“We know they are eager for help,” said Kita S. Curry, Didi Hirsch’s president and CEO. “Calls to our hotline more than double whenever La Opinion or various Spanish language radio and TV stations report on our services.”

Didi Hirsch will become one of only 11 centers in the U.S. offering 40 hours or more of Spanish language coverage each week, said Lidia S. Bernik, director of network development for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, an organization dedicated to maintaining high standards among members of its network.

The Board of Supervisors on Dec. 1 approved a change in the county’s contract with the center, allowing it to receive $802,733 in state Mental Health Services Act funds, with part of the money going toward establishing the Spanish-language lines. Already five bilingual crisis counselors have been hired and the organization is searching for a bilingual therapist. The center also is looking for volunteers to complete its intensive training program so they, too, can answer the hotline—a challenge for many bilingual working people who can’t easily miss job or family obligations to take part in the 60-hour course. (The next volunteer training sessions begin Jan. 23.)

“There are few events that are more shattering for a family than a suicide. The ability to prevent one affects many lives,” said Marvin Southard, the county’s director of mental health, explaining the importance of offering Spanish language crisis-line services. Southard said the benefits will ripple beyond Los Angeles because the organization serves as a backup for other suicide hotlines throughout California, picking up their calls when they are over-subscribed, he said.

While the center has had limited Spanish language coverage—and has access to a network of speakers of languages including Korean and Farsi as well as Spanish, German and French—the center will expand its reach dramatically starting on Wednesday. That’s when it will begin offering callers help in Spanish from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Once new hires are trained, the service will run round-the-clock. The number for the center’s crisis line is (877) 7-CRISIS, or (877) 727-4747.

The need for outreach and prevention is profound.

Although Latinos in general do not commit suicide at a rate greater than whites, Latino young people, especially teenage girls, are more likely than their peers in other ethnic groups to consider and attempt suicide.

A 2007 CDC survey of risky behavior among high school students found that 21.1% percent of Latinas reported they had seriously considered attempting suicide, compared to 18% of black females and 17.8% of whites. An earlier CDC report, “Suicide Among Hispanics,” said that suicide was the third-leading cause of death among Latinos ages 10-24.

“Hispanics in grades 9-12, particularly females, report more feelings of sadness or hopelessness and of suicidal ideation and attempt, compared with their white or black non-Hispanic counterparts,” the report said. “A comprehensive, strategic plan for suicide prevention should include multiple points for prevention, maximizing the likelihood of reaching persons in need.”

In all, 675 people committed suicide during 2007 in Los Angeles County. Most of them—58%–were non-Hispanic whites, while 22.5% were Latinos, followed by Asians, blacks, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders.

In addition to helping to establish Spanish crisis lines, the new mental health funds also will be used by Didi Hirsch to create support groups for Spanish-speaking survivors of suicide and to expand the organization’s outreach capacity to Latinos in both English and Spanish. A key target of that outreach will be focused on high schools, where Latino students are an important audience for suicide prevention messages, said Lyn Morris, Didi Hirsch’s division director of emergency services.

Along those lines, the county Department of Mental Health also is planning a targeted program aimed at suicide prevention among teenage Latinas, which is expected to come before the Board of Supervisors early next year.

Such multi-faceted efforts are crucial. Morris of the Didi Hirsch center said Latinos tend to rely on “internal support systems” such as friends and family and church, generally turning to outsiders only as a last resort.

“By the time they call us,” she said, “we find that they’re pretty desperate.”