"The Aftermath of Suicide" workshop

When someone has died by suicide, how do you support the people coping with the loss?
When someone has attempted suicide, how do you support the attempter and his/her family?

Learn from two experts in the suicide field how you can help people grieving the loss of suicide or a suicide attempt. What do you say? What can you do? What are the resources available? This workshop is geared toward anyone who might come in contact with people coping with suicide.

“The Aftermath of Suicide:
Supporting People Coping With Suicide Loss, Suicide Attempters and their Families"

Michelle Linn-Gust, Ph.D.
Michelle is the president-elect of the American Association of Suicidology and an international speaker and writer about suicide postvention and prevention issues. She is the author of Do They Have Bad Days In Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling and Ginger’s Gift: Hope and Healing through Dog Companionship, and the forthcoming Rocky Roads: The Journeys of Families through Suicide Grief. She also is a co-founder of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition.

JoAnn Sartorius, L.I.S.W.
JoAnn's work with high-risk adolescents and their families spans 30 years.
For the last decade, she has concentrated on suicide prevention as well as addressing the aftermath of suicide. Currently, JoAnn works throughout the state as a program coordinator and trainer for school-based suicide prevention programs, is a member of a suicide crisis response team, and presents educational workshops on suicide prevention for youth, school personnel and communities. JoAnn is a co-founder of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition.

January 21, 2010, 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
United Way Central New Mexico
2340 Alamo Ave. SE, 2nd Floor
Albuquerque, NM

Cost for the workshop is $40,
Counseling and Social Work CEUs (3) are $15 and payable to JoAnn Sartorius at the workshop

Minimum number of participants is 30, maximum is 50.

Registration online at www.chelleheadworks.com or mail a check for $40 per participant with names and email addresses of participants to:
Chellehead Works (check should be made out to Chellehead Works),
1711 Solano Dr, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110
Questions? Email: info@chelleheadworks.com

PLEASE PRE-REGISTER!!!!!!!

October 20th workshop, The aftermath of suicide, Albuquerque

When someone has died by suicide, how do you support the people coping with the loss?
When someone has attempted suicide, how do you support the attempter and his/her family?
Learn from two experts in the suicide field how you can help people grieving the loss of suicide or a suicide attempt. What do you say? What can you do? What are the resources available? This workshop is geared toward lay anyone who might come in contact with people coping with suicide.
“The Aftermath of Suicide:
Supporting People Coping With Suicide Loss, Suicide Attempters and their Families”
Michelle Linn-Gust, Ph.D.
Michelle is the president-elect of the American Association of Suicidology and an international speaker and writer about suicide postvention and prevention issues. She is the author of Do They Have Bad Days In Heaven? Surviving the Suicide Loss of a Sibling and Ginger’s Gift: Hope and Healing through Dog Companionship. She also is a co-founder of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition.
JoAnn Sartorius, L.I.S.W.
JoAnn’s work with high-risk adolescents and their families spans 30 years.
For the last decade, she has concentrated on suicide prevention as well as addressing the aftermath of suicide. Currently, JoAnn works throughout the state as a program coordinator and trainer for school-based suicide prevention programs, is a member of a suicide crisis response team, and presents educational workshops on suicide prevention for youth, school personnel and communities. JoAnn is a co-founder of the New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition.
October 20, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm
United Way Central New Mexico
2340 Alamo Ave. SE, 2nd Floor
Albuquerque, NM
Cost for the workshop is $40,
Counseling and Social Work CEUs (3) are $15 and payable to JoAnn Sartorius at the workshop
Minimum number of participants is 30, maximum is 50.
Registration online at www.chelleheadworks.com or mail a check for $40 per participant with names and email addresses of participants to:
Chellehead Works (check should be made out to Chellehead Works),
1711 Solano Dr, NE, Albuquerque, NM 87110
Questions? Email: info@chelleheadworks.com
PLEASE PRE-REGISTER ASAP TO ENSURE YOUR SPOT!!!!!!!

Video about a Family's Grief...Years Later

This video was made by fellow sibling survivor and filmmaker Jeff Orgill about his family years following his brother’s suicide. Jeff created the video for the AAS conference in April where he was speaking on a panel about men’s grief. Please check it out and pass it along.

Richard Stubbs radio show in Melbourne

The link will let you listen to the Richard Stubbs radio show that I appeared on in Melbourne. I think he did a great job with the topic, especially since he hasn't been touched by suicide in his life. He really had a clue.

Home Sweet Home

Unfortunately, due to the cost of the internet at the hotel (about $23 US a day which is the most I've ever seen) and the poor public wireless access, I couldn't blog the rest of the trip. The conference went well although I will say it was pretty nutty few days and I'm not sure when I would have blogged anyway! I did one last interview for Sky Television on Friday and gave three talks on Saturday (a plenary, a workshop session on families and pets helping people cope, and then spoke at the remembrance and healing service). Saturday night I had dinner with Frank Campbell and several Living Works people. I ordered the flounder and we all were surprised when my plate appeared with a rather large flounder on it while all the others ordered fish and got these little squares! Needless to say, fish isn't on my list for a while. I also fell in love with sticky date pudding and had that for a second time that night. Thanks to Susan Beaton for introducing me to it! I'm sure I'll figure out how to make it myself. I flew from Melbourne to Sydney and then Sydney to San Francisco on Sunday. I was in the first row of economy which meant I had a little more room. There was a baby next to me who managed to hardly to cry at all during the flight (ah....). He spent part of the night running his fingers across the sleeve of my fleece pullover. I was back in ABQ at 5:00 pm and we headed straight to Frontier for dinner. Suffering from some jet lag (it's now 4:11 am!) and it'll take me a few days to unpack but I always find it amazing how much my world gets smaller each time I travel. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take this trip and to spend time with people I knew as well as get to know new people. One woman who heard me on the radio (where I mentioned facebook) friended me and came to the healing service. She lost her younger sister two years ago. It's all about connecting people because that's how we find hope.

Radio in Melbourne

Today was the pre conference and I did some radio this afternoon which went really well. We had a full hour and the host was great- Richard Stubbs. A woman called in and you could hear a little dog barking in the background. She then went on to say that her sister had just died and the funeral is tomorrow. They had the dog with them and she said she had a sense of her sister being with her because of that. Sadly, the dog wasn't enough to sustain her sister her in life but she will be a connection to her as time goes by.

Interviews and flying to Melbourne

I ran in the rain this morning in the park by the hotel. There were lots of dogs! Of course none of them were mine. I'm sure as I ran, mine were snoozing in their various spots at home in Albuquerque. I did a newspaper interview and just did a radio interview. One more radio interview before I head to the airport to fly to Melbourne. This last radio interview was from Nowra about two hours south of Sydney on the coast. He asked me about the gun laws and gun lobby in the US. The public relations people, I feel, have somewhat sensationalized the whole piece about guns in schools and such to the radio and tv people. I answer any questions that I am asked but I am always hesitant when it comes to such political issues, especially when I'm in a different country (I almost single-handedly started the troubles again in Northern Ireland during a session I did there when we were discussion religion...religion always gets me in trouble!). Also, my work is more on the postvention side, helping people cope after the suicide. I had to set the producer straight at the Kerri-Anne show that I was not here to discuss prevention (they were going to ask me about warning signs). I'm all about helping people survive their losses to live hopeful lives again.

Dr. Sally Witt radio show

I will be appearing on the Dr. Sally Witt radio show tomorrow (Wednesday, April 29). The info is linked here. Check out an interview we did on you tube: Interview #2.

Too long without a blog and a dog presentation

I didn't realize it had been three weeks since I blogged. I guess the dogs haven't done anything too exciting in that time. I am just back from San Francisco for the American Association of Suicidology conference where I was installed as the new President-Elect, a position I will hold for two years before becoming president. While there, I presented a session on how dogs help people cope with Jennifer Emmert from the San Francisco SPCA. She brought two therapy dogs and their guardians: Carol Hulse and Silver and Jo Kaufman and Kobe. As you can imagine, the dogs were a hit. When people arrived for the session, the immediately went to Silver (Kobe hadn't arrived yet) because most of us had been away from home all week and we were missing our own dogs. I'm including a few photos from the session. Near the end, when Jennifer was answering a question, I sat down in the front row and heard what sounded like snoring behind me. I kept thinking that surely it wasn't either of the women sitting behind me. Then I realized it was Kobe, sound asleep in Jo's lap! The weather has warmed up, finally, here in Albuquerque and the dogs will be taking a swim this afternoon. I convinced Nestle to get in the pool before I left but she only got as far as her paws before she jumped out. I believe the water temperature was about 63 degrees. Brrrrr! She wouldn't be a good hunting dog since she's been too spoiled at our house. The solar cover is on the pool now and I anticipate the pool water will be about 80 when we roll it off later this afternoon.