On August 20, 2018 Administrative Pastor Devin Lipsey & Celebrate Recovery’s Veteran Facilitator Tommy Keelble from Rio Revolution Church were trained and certified as Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Instructors. Rio Revolution is a new VMFC and hosted the event.
- Suicide is the second leading cause of death for ages 10-24. In June 2018, Vet to Vet Tennessee (VTVT) initiated a pilot program to help VMFCs Youth leaders teach QPR Suicide Prevention Gatekeepers. The vision is to train and certify VMFC youth leaders who will train their youth 10 and above to become Suicide Prevention Gatekeepers. Once trained, the youth gatekeepers will have to knowledge how to ask the question and observe high risk suicidal behavior in the younger members.
VTVT provided 17 free scholarships in their Phase I pilot program. The program was incredibly successful thanks to the prayers and generosity of numerous donors. VTVT’s Phase II program is scheduled to teach 100 QPR Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Instructors in one year of the new grant.
Just image, if just one of you helps train someone to apply QPR and that person saves one single life, then the training, and all the money and expense and time it took to make it happen will have been worth it. And then some! “Every One Matters”. Thank you Rio Revolution Church, Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network Executive Director Scott Ridgeway and QPR Institute Kathryn White for supporting the VTVT pilot program.
