METHUEN — Talking about depression is the first and most important step in reducing its impact.
That’s the message that Sugeily Santos, who has worked as a counselor in the Boston school system for 17 years, will offer in a program on suicide prevention at Nevins Memorial Library at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 13.
“I do a lot of prevention work,” Santos said. “My goal is to get to you before things get a little bit out of control.”
The program will be offered in Spanish and a translator will be available for English speakers. This is the first of two sessions on suicide prevention that the library is offering this spring, and will be followed by a workshop with a facilitator from the Samaritans at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 16. Registration at nevinslibrary.org is required for both events.
“The April program is intended for parents and guardians of teens and younger children,” said Sarah Sullivan, assistant director at the library. “The program in May is a bit more broad in focus.”
The May presentation will include statistics relating to the mental health struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, and of Black and indigenous residents and other people of color.
The facilitator from the Samaritans will also address self-care and “postvention” skills, or interventions that follow a suicide to support friends and family of the deceased, Sullivan said.
The library is offering these programs to address an intense situation in Methuen, where 80 to 90% of calls to the city’s police are for mental health problems.
“To the best of my memory, this is the first time that the library has held this kind of programming,” Sullivan said. “We are aware of the need for more mental health support in our community, and participate in the city’s mental health task force. Hosting these kinds of programs, in addition to the rest of the programming we offer, is a way for us to help provide resources and information for the community.”
Santos said it is important for parents to develop a relationship with their children, so they can tell when something is wrong.
Depending on parents’ schedules, she suggests they might help a child do a chore such as cleaning the kitchen, or picking up their rooms. It’s “something kids hate,” Santos said, but sharing the work is a good opportunity to connect.
“One thing is, don’t go selling your story right away, ‘When I was young,’” Santos said. “We want to be active listeners. Minimize the amount of air space you take up.”
Santos said it’s also important for a parent not to be too judgmental, which will also stifle communication.
“It’s really hard to talk to someone who’s made a decision about what you should do, or what you’re not doing,” Santos said.
She also encourages parents to seek advice from school staff or counselors who can talk with them about their child’s problems, “that one person who has flexibility when it comes to communication.”
Santos will talk about signs of depression, which include a range of changes in behavior, but vary depending on the situation a child may be confronting.
“What I see in my job tends to be situational,” Santos said, and that means parents should try to identify the source of the problem, which could be in a youngster’s personal life or in their work at school.
But the most important thing is to talk to children about depression, once it is apparent that they are struggling with its effects.
“If we’re not talking about it, we’re sending the message that we don’t care, or it’s not important, or ‘you just need to deal with that,’” Santos said.
It can be hard for parents to get comfortable with this topic if they were raised in a culture that discourages talking openly about mental health problems.
But the mental health needs of young people have grown since the pandemic, while access to mental health services has become increasingly limited, even for school counselors like Santos who have relationships with providers.
“There are wait lists that are six months long,” Santos said. “Clinics have their own wait lists.”
That makes it all the more vital for parents to find ways to provide support that can go a long way toward easing a child’s depression.
“What I say to parents is, if we can have conversations to create an environment at home where kids can talk about what they’re feeling, we can start to rule some things out,” Santos said. “Some kids need deeper support, higher level support. For some kids, it could be bullying, it could be a class they find challenging.”