July 2015 Update

Hello ya’ll! I wanted to give you an update on the work we have been doing.

SPARC Events

Since our first SPARC meeting in May 2014, we have had three meetings with members of the community and local mental health organizations, attended various events around the community, and provided trainings for Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST).
One of our memorable events include the recent May is Mental Health Awareness Month event at CSUB. We had so many people visit our booth, we ran out of stress kits.



One Year Anniversary for Facebook

July 16th was our one year anniversary since we launched the SPARC Facebook page. Since the first month, we have had an increase in likes by 62%! We are especially thankful for those who have been kind enough to like, share, and comment on our content we provide. And we are thankful for having organizations in the community work towards bringing awareness to suicide, such as Marley’s Mutts and Houchin Blood Bank with our #EverybodysGotProblems campaign.

Future Events and Projects


Suicide Prevention Day in September

Some of the plans we have for our social media accounts (both Facebook and Twitter) include a campaign for suicide awareness and prevention for the month of September; Suicide Prevention Day is 9/10. What I want to do is get quotes from those in our community about how suicide affects you and take pictures so we can share your experiences. After all, suicide does not discriminate and as soon as we can make it safe to talk about suicide, the easier it will be to reach out for help. So if you’re willing to be quoted and possibly have your picture taken, email me at mhsparc@gmail.com.

Suicide Prevention Pet Photos

I am also trying to reach out to local organizations to see if we can take pictures of rescue cats and dogs for our “Suicide Prevention Pet” photos. We want to educate the community about suicide prevention and mental health maintenance through photos of adorable animals. Hopefully, we can get an organization to work with us. Regardless, if you would like your pet to be a suicide prevention pet on our SPARC page, email us so we can set something up.

Take care!

- Alison