BILLINGS — With Montana’s suicide rate among the highest in the nation, RiverStone Health is launching a new grief support program aimed at helping those left behind, and the agency is turning to people who know that pain firsthand.
The Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors (LOSS) Team will offer in-person visits, follow-up calls, mailed messages, and up to three free counseling sessions to people who have lost a loved one to suicide in Yellowstone County. The initiative partners with the Yellowstone County Coroner’s Office to identify families most in need.
Volunteers will be the foundation of the program—specifically, those who have also experienced suicide loss.
“We are looking for people who have witnessed or experienced a loved one’s suicide,” said Melissa Henderson, a senior director of Public Health Services at RiverStone Health. “So, they themselves are a survivor that’s left behind. We are really looking for someone that had that experience at least a year ago because we often find in our bereavement work that that is enough time for them to have resolved their own grief.”
Watch how RiverStone Health’s new L.O.S.S. Team is turning personal grief into powerful outreach:
Henderson said around a dozen trained volunteers will make up the core team.
“When a suicide occurs, survivors are left behind,” said Henderson. “Oftentimes, survivors go through a really traumatic emotional event, and that puts them at greater risk for suicide themselves.”
Montana’s suicide rate is nearly double the national average. About 60 percent of those deaths involve a firearm, according to Henderson. In Yellowstone County alone, approximately one in five residents have considered suicide, according to RiverStone Health.
Henderson said that the LOSS team is designed to break the isolation that often follows suicide loss—providing consistent, trained outreach at a time when people may be least likely to ask for help.
“We know if you ask the question, if you talk about it, it does not increase someone’s risk. It actually reduces their risk,” said Henderson.
That kind of outreach, she added, is often out of reach for those who need it most.
“It can be really difficult to put your own needs first or to think about, ‘Where am I going to find the time to make an appointment, to afford an appointment,’” said Henderson. “It is a privilege to be able to indulge in self-care, and it should not be an indulgence.”
Those interested in volunteering can visit RiverStoneHealth.org/LOSS.
