STOPS

STOPS' mission is to reduce the incidence of suicide and its devastating aftermath in our community. By fostering prevention, intervention, and postvention resources, we seek to create a community safety net for individuals and families in crisis. In 2020, there were 21,570 homicides and 45,979 suicides in the U.S. Suicide is a serious problem in the U.S. St. Tammany Parish has one of the highest suicide rates in Louisiana. Please help us to continue to make a difference in our community.

Our prevention education programs include the ASIST - Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training - a rigorous 2 day course designed to teach individuals the risk factors and warning signs of suicide and how to actually perform an intervention to save a life, safeTALK - Suicide Alertness for Everyone - this 3 hour course teaches individuals how to pick up on the warning signs and get someone the help they need. It teaches the TALK steps - Tell, Ask, Listen, and Keep Safe, and SuicideTALK. This one-to-three-hour session is a peer-led discussion on suicide awareness and erasing the stigma surrounding suicide. 

Our LOSS Team is Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors - we work in conjunction with the Sheriff's office and the Coroner's office, and are notified when a suicide takes place in St. Tammany Parish. Two LOSS Team members are dispatched, day or night, to meet with the families immediately. We also host an SOS meeting twice monthly - Survivors of Suicide Support Group - that meets to process what survivors or loved ones are going through and to know that there are others who are going through the same thing. Those left behind are at risk themselves.