Bill Designed To Help Prevent Suicides

State Representative Beth Griffin of Mattawan is a co-sponsor of legislation designed to help prevent suicides in Michigan. She tells WSJM News the proposal would create the Suicide Fatality Review Act, allowing Michigan counties to establish a review task force. Those panels would include doctors, police, mental health experts, and others who have been affected by suicide. They would look for trends and patterns locally in an effort to address the situation, and meet following a student’s suicide. Griffin’s bill exempts the local panels from Open Meetings Act laws.

“There’s been feedback from people and from students and from administrators that due to the sensitive nature of suicide, and what happens afterward, some parents and some friends of the person who committed suicide are reluctant to come forward with information because they don’t want that information to get out or to be shared outside the task force,” Griffin said.

There were nearly 1,400 reported suicide deaths in Michigan in 2018, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It was the second-leading cause of death in the state for those between 15 and 34. Griffin says the bills have been referred to the House Health Policy Committee.