School Tip Lines Prevent Suicide

Feb 4, 2020, 4:24 PM

(from NBC) Across the country, as officials look for ways to prevent school shootings, states have started tip lines — websites, apps and phone numbers that let students anonymously report concerns about classmates. But in many places, reports of students self-harming or feeling suicidal have far outpaced the number of threats against schools, according to annual reports compiled by state agencies.

Oregon's tip line, launched in January 2017, has received 540 reports of a suicidal student, compared to 278 reports of a threatened attack on a school. Pennsylvania’s took in 2,529 reports related to self-harm and 2,184 related to suicidal thoughts in its first six months last year, while threats against schools accounted for 607 reports. Nevada’s tip line, launched in 2018, collected 371 suicide threats, 350 reports of self-harm and 248 threats to a school in its first year. Other states have similar statistics. Psychologists and counselors say the data from the tip lines should be a wake-up call to a far more likely threat than school shootings that has not received the same urgent focus.