BARABOO — Jody Bruni, Sauk County public health nurse and QPR training facilitator, will lead a session to help community members “Learn More about Suicide.”
The presentation will be held on Wednesday, May 29, at 7 p.m. In the Martha and Mary Hall at St. Joseph Church, 304 East St., Baraboo. The public throughout the Diocese of Madison is welcome to attend.
An effort to organize this event started when Frank Friar, a staff member with the Wisconsin Farm Center within the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, talked with Fr. Jay Poster, pastor of St. Joseph Parish, about the strain Wisconsin farm families are facing.
Friar said that Iowa and Sauk Counties have the highest rates of suicide deaths in Wisconsin. Each year, the Farm Center hotline fields about 2,000 calls from farm families.
Father Poster said, “We have to let people know that suicide is an epidemic that touches every part of our society for as many different reasons as there are those parts of our society. All ends of our social spectrum are vulnerable, from children as young as five to senior citizens, as well as many groups in-between (such as abuse victims, military veterans, farm families, and first responders).
“We want to make people aware of the problem, alert them to signs of trouble, and offer them places to turn. The parishioners who have spoken to me about this session support the problem being brought into the open.”