Since 1990, Butler County has lost a total 855 lives to suicide — about 37 people each year, according to ODH data. Butler County’s 23-year high was in 2008 when 58 people committed suicide.
“The trend is increasing,” said Scott Rasmus, executive director of Butler County Mental Health Board. “It reached a peak in 2008 (at the start of the Great Recession), and there definitely seems to be a connection with the state of the economy and number of suicide deaths.”
Ohio ranks 35th in the U.S. for its suicide rate of 12.7 deaths per 100,000 population. The state had about 1,400 people kill themselves last year, according to Ohio Department of Health.
Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in America, and among those ages 15-24 it’s the second leading cause of death.
“The very sad circumstance of Robin Williams’ death has brought a lot of awareness to suicide and prevention,” Rasmus said.
Rasmus said Butler County makes available to its residents a 24-hour crisis hotline, as well as a mobile crisis team at the ready every day.
“We used to have three separate numbers for crisis calls,” Rasmus said. “In February, we streamlined to one toll-free number across the county in order to make it easy to call for help.”
The crisis hotline — receiving about 552 calls a month — is meant to handle any type of mental health crisis and will refer the caller to various services too, Rasmus said. The hotline can be reached by dialing 1-844-4CRISIS.
The mobile crisis team — operated out of Butler Behavioral Health Service’s Consultation & Crisis Intervention program in Hamilton — is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week and on holidays. Rasmus said it’s their goal to be on site within an hour of a suicidal or homicidal threat, but the team averages just 20 minutes to any site in the county.
“It depends on how severe and present the risk of harm is,” Rasmus said.
The mobile crisis team is deployed about 110 times a month for a total of 1,300 responses each year, Rasmus said.
As an added prevention measure for younger age groups, the mental health board has provided more than 1,000 posters to about 30 schools across Butler County, including Miami University campuses and the Cincinnati State Middletown campus, which feature the 24-hour crisis hotline and convenient tear-away tabs with the phone number.
Local school districts, including Middletown, Talawanda, Hamilton, Fairfield and Lakota, have the posters displayed throughout hallways and bathrooms in the middle and high schools.
“As a district, we try to be very proactive,” said Amy Macechko, wellness coordinator for Talawanda. “We don’t want students out there questioning is there help available.”
The Talawanda buildings have featured the crisis hotline posters since the 2013-14 school year, said Marianne Marconi, guidance counselor at Talawanda High School. She said the district’s health curriculum for ninth graders also touches on issues of suicide and depression.
Marconi said teachers and staff in the schools are trained to recognize warning signs of a troubled student and alert the guidance office. Marconi said the guidance counselors first meet with the student to fill out a suicide risk assessment form using open-ended questions, and then calls home to the parent.
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