How to curb Utah’s teen-suicide rate? Hatch-convened roundtable says kids needs access to mental-health services

By Alex Stuckey | The Salt Lake Tribune

Republican state Sen. Daniel Thatcher was 11 years old when he lost his first classmate to suicide. He was 16 when he lost his close friend.

That's why, he says, it's so important to drop the stigma and talk about suicide.

"If you talk to someone, they live," Thatcher, from West Valley City, said. "If you connect them to support, they live."

Hatch convenes suicide-prevention conference

By Lois M. Collins & Lauren Fields | Deseret News

“We’ve made more progress in the last five years than in the 20 years before,” Dr. Doug Gray, a psychiatrist, professor and suicidologist at the University of Utah, told the audience at the roundtable, held at East High in Salt Lake City.

On Tuesday, December 13, 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act remarking that "those of us called upon to lead this country have a duty" to stand by the families and communities struggling with addiction. The significant funding included in the bill will help fight the ongoing opioid crisis, authorizing $1 billion in grants to states over the next two years.