The Arizona Child Fatality Review Program said in a 2019 report that there’s been a 28% increase from 2017 in youth suicide. The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at ASU partnered with the Arizona Community Foundation to form a team of students that will take part in youth suicide research and why it increased and put together a 30-minute documentary.
The students take an in-depth reporting class taught by visiting professor, David Ariosto. Nineteen students will be doing research throughout the Spring and Summer semesters of 2020, working in close cooperation with ASU Cronkite’s Borderlands Project and will air some of the content before the documentary is broadcast on Arizona Public Television.
His students will be comparing risk factors like culture, income disparity, poverty, lack of coping mechanisms, loss of community in some areas, drug and alcohol abuse, social media and sports-related injuries.
“We hope to shed some light on some real solutions that the state or federal government can look at,” he said.
The documentary will explore laws recently passed that have to do with training educators on how to look for signs. One bill that’s running throughout the legislature is called “Jake’s Law” which increases access to mental health treatment by ensuring compliance with mental health and addiction insurance.
Christina Leonard, the executive editor of Cronkite News, is directing students and overseeing investigative efforts. The students are researching nationwide programs regarding youth suicide.
“It’s taking a hard look nationwide to see what programs are out there with a critical eye,” she said.
Leonard describes that the solution-based approach helps the public understand the issue by showcasing the complexities.
“The media might portray that there was a sole cause to a suicide when in fact the research shows that it’s a myriad of factors,” Leonard said.
The documentary will tackle youth suicide from a “solutions journalism” perspective.
“A solutions-based documentary means we’re not telling a sob story about youth we have lost to suicide,” said Jordan Elders, a Cronkite graduate student and one of Ariosto’s students. “We’re telling stories of how people in Arizona are fixing the problem in trying to help lower the rates of youth suicide, how they are identifying the core issues and find solutions for it.”
His students will speak with individuals that are on the frontline, such as mental health experts, first responders and teen suicide hotlines.
Elder’s focus is Teen Lifeline, the only youth-led, crisis hotline in Arizona where teens counsel teens. America’s Health Rankings from United Health Foundation found that Arizona’s suicide rate among 15- to 24-year-olds is higher than the national average.
Many calls are about suicide, but others also deal with runaways, teen pregnancy and domestic violence.
“It was very eye-opening to me. When I first heard the idea of a hotline led by teenagers, I couldn’t really picture what it would be like but the teens that work there are so mature and hands-on,” Elders said.
Through her interviews, Elders realized there was a common theme.
“The thing that I kept hearing over and over was teenagers just want someone to listen to them,” she said. “They don’t want someone to solve all their problems, they don’t want someone to come in and tell them how to fix it. They just want to be heard.”
Julie Mack, the preventive administrator for Arizona Complete Health and a documentary contributor, said suicide is complex.
“I look at suicide for youth and adults as fitting puzzle pieces together, some of the puzzle pieces for one individual may be quite different for another individual,” Mack said.
Mack further explains that an essential component to better understand why young people commit suicide is through diverse community members coming together and sharing their life experiences. She hopes this will help bridge the gap and build a comprehensive framework for further research and analysis.
Elders said the documentary is a collaborative effort with a hopeful message that things can be done to improve the issue of youth suicide.
“What we don’t want to do is sensationalize suicide and tell a story that isn’t going to give people hope,” she said.
The completed documentary will be released Spring of 2021 and the first footage to preview the documentary will be released mid-May. For any further information on the documentary, contact David Ariosto david@davidariosto.com.
Contact the reporter at jkoneil3@asu.edu.
