Senior leadership pledge support for suicide prevention

By Megan ClarkNovember 28, 2022

Senior leadership pledge support for suicide prevention
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Maj. Gen. Robert Edmonson II, APG senior commander and commanding general of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, speaks to the audience about having important conversations with one another surrounding suicide and mental health.
Photo by Megan Clark, APG News
(Photo Credit: Megan Clark)
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Senior leadership pledge support for suicide prevention
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Sgt. Maj. Sharita Onugha, senior enlisted advisor for the U.S. Army Resilience Directorate, speaks to the audience about ARD’s new Integrated Prevention Advisory Group. (Photo Credit: Megan Clark) VIEW ORIGINAL

The Commander’s Ready and Resilient Council for APG hosted a Suicide Prevention Month observance and proclamation signing at the Myer Auditorium here Sept. 15, 2022. The month of September is nationally recognized as Suicide Prevention Month.

Vivian Jackson, Army Substance Abuse Program specialist and Suicide Prevention Program Manager, emphasized that suicide prevention doesn’t start and end in September, but rather is an “every day task.”

“We must treat suicide with the same urgency as any other major killer,” Jackson said. “Today let’s pledge to stop stereotyping asking for help.”

Maj. Gen. Robert Edmonson II, commanding general of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command and senior commander of APG, and Col. Johnny Casiano, APG garrison commander, signed the proclamation. The proclamation is on display in the ASAP building on post.

“We have to have these conversations,” Edmonson said. “During this month, we raise the level of conversation associated with suicide and mental health challenges, but it doesn’t end here.”

Edmonson asked that team APG remember that there is strength in seeking help. He hopes to destigmatize the notion that asking for help is negative.

“We are all part of this team,” he said. “If you know someone that could benefit from the tools that we have available, direct them to those resources and protect our people. There is strength in anyone who can admit a vulnerability.”

Sgt. Maj. Sharita Onugha, senior enlisted advisor for the U.S. Army Resilience Directorate, spoke to the audience about the ARD’s new Integrated Prevention Advisory Group.

“(IPAG) will come in and build up programs that installations already have in place to make them even better,” Onugha said. “IPAG will help advise commanders to create a plan of action to put in place to improve quality of life, reduce harmful behaviors and encourage holistic paths.”

IPAG will start in locations with higher suicide rates for the time being but will move to other installations in the future.

“I want people to understand that we already have a plethora of resources,” she said. “People are our Army. It’s important for us to understand how significant an issue suicide is. We have to get after prevention.”