What a Difference a Friend Makes
South Carolina’s project is designed to reach young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who are not necessarily college students, but rather those who live in rural areas of the State. SC SHARE plans to deliver a message of hope and meaning to the target audience through the distribution and placement of SAMHSA’s CMHR materials, by utilizing the existing SC SHARE website as a clearinghouse for all anti-stigma campaign activities taking place throughout the State, and by facilitating the development of a musical/theatre production done by young people, promoting the key message of compassion and the sharing of personal recovery stories.

Ready For Life!

The Ready For Life group will help you understand that no matter who you are and where you come from life can be meaningful and purposeful.

July 2, 2008 - Ready For Life Rally
Click here to view and print our flyer telling you more about this workshop and how to register.

Mental Health America Launches Suicide Prevention Training program in South Carolina
QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer -- 3 simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. QPR – is a simple educational program that teaches ordinary citizens how to recognize a mental health emergency and how to get a person at risk the help they need. It is also an action plan that can result in lives saved.   Click here to download a flyer telling you more about this training program.

Director of SCDMH relates
how mental illness affects S.C.

The South Carolina Department of Mental Health(SCDMH)State Director John H. Magill spoke to the St. Andrews Rotary Club on Broad River Road in Columbia on September 4, 2007. Read more...

A PROMISE FOR TOMORROW

I promise to be here for my friends. I will watch for any behavior that concerns me and I will TALK, LISTEN and RESPOND using the LIFE model.

• Each week in our nation, we lose approximately 100+ young people to suicide.
  
  
• Even though white males make up the majority of completed suicides, from 1980-1995, suicide among black youth ages 10-14 increased 233% and in black youth ages 15-19 suicide rates increased 126%. For black youth in the southern region of the nation, there was an increase of 214%.
  
  
• In the past forty years, youth suicide rates have almost tripled. Between 1980 and 1996, suicide rates for ages 10 to 14 increased by over 100%.
  
  
• More teenagers and young adults have died of suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease COMBINED.
  
  
• According to the NMHA, four out of five people who attempt suicide have given clear warnings.
  
  Join the promise program today. Click here to sign up and print out your promise card.