CAIRO, Ga. — Grady County Family Connection met Tuesday to discuss the formation a state-funded suicide prevention coalition.

Start Teaching Early Prevention (STEP) Up Grady County was formed to help initiate The Suicide Prevention Project, a prevention initiative of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities’ (DBHDD) Office of Behavioral Health Prevention (OBHP).

The newly-formed group, which was the subject of Tuesday’s meeting at Mr. Chick Restaurant, was created with a five-year grant from DBHDD.

HEARTS for Families, formerly the Family Nurturing Center of Georgia, received the DBHDD grant in part because its plan to launch the project implementing a five-point data-driven method called the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Strategic Prevention Framework (SPF).

Dustin Infinger, HEARTS community involvement specialist, said STEP Up is currently in the first stage of the SPF, gathering data in a community needs assessment to then determine how to implement a prevention plan.

“The more data we collect, the more primary data we can get when we speak with the coroners and talk with the hospitals (the better),” Infinger said. “We’re going to know a lot more once we’re done with our needs assessment than I know right now about what’s actually happening in the community. That’s part of what we’re trying to find out, is who is this affecting exactly and how.”

While youth are at a particularly high risk for suicide nationwide, Infinger said when he looked at previously gathered data for Grady County he noticed the issue was disproportionally affecting adults ages 35 to 54.

“That might have something to do with the fact that this is a rural community. There are a lot of people that are in the agricultural field and that’s been strained with all of the storm damage that we’ve had,” Infinger said. “I don’t know specifically that that’s the issue, but it could be. The data is hard to find and we’re still in the middle of our needs assessment.”

Infinger said Grady County was selected as the location to launch the pilot program for southwest Georgia because it was seen as a higher risk area compared to surrounding counties.

“There’s a reason this community was selected,” Infinger said. “We’re not looking at staggering, terrifying numbers compared to larger communities, but when you look at the population of Grady County and the death rate, it is scary. It’s scary enough for there to be a concern.”

Infinger said it is important for communities to discuss the issue, even if it is seen as an uncomfortable topic.

“Even if we’re not worried about suicide, we should be concerned with each others’ mental health and wellbeing and talking about it and asking each other, because why not?” he said.

In particular, Infinger said there is a “major misconception” that suicide should not be discussed in order to prevent implanting suicidal thoughts into at-risk individuals.

Infinger said that isn’t the case.

“If I could see anything come out of this group, it’s that you’re not going to give somebody the idea,” he said. “If you talk about methods you might give somebody an idea about how to do it if they were already thinking of it. That’s what we don’t want to do.”

Instead, Infinger said people should seek a more active role in speaking about suicide with individuals believed to be at risk.

“Maybe it’s an uncomfortable conversation, but people who are feeling suicidal thoughts — and I can tell you this from experience — we just sometimes want somebody to ask,” Infinger said. “We want somebody to say ‘are you all right?’ Sometimes you just think no one cares, no one sees me, no one knows that I’m going through the things that I’m going through, I’m isolated, I’m alone in this world, I’m the only person that thinks this way. Just knowing that somebody sees that you’re suffering or in pain sometimes can be enough.”

Infinger, who lost his mother to suicide when he was 21, said he hoped STEP Up will be able to do just that.

“I know it’s not the cheeriest issue — suicide prevention — but it’s very important,” Infinger said. “It’s hard to talk about, but we do need to start speaking about it a little bit more.”