U.S Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) on May 10 helped lead a bipartisan group of lawmakers in introducing the Suicide Training and Awareness Nationally Delivered for Universal Prevention (STANDUP) Act of 2021, which aims to help battle what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls a growing problem.
Sen. Ernst is the lead original cosponsor of S. 1543 with bill sponsor U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and nine other original cosponsors, including U.S. Sens. Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), to address America’s rising youth suicide rates.
“In 2019 one out of every five high school students in Iowa considered suicide,” Sen. Ernst said. “As a mom, this is a truly heartbreaking statistic, and we need to do more to raise awareness and prevent these tragic deaths.”
Based on the CDC’s 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 8.9 percent of youth in grades 9–12 reported that they made at least one suicide attempt during the 12 months before the survey, according to the text of S. 1543. The rates of suicide among non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaska Natives were 60 percent greater than the general population in 2019 and are the highest of any racial or ethnic group in the United States, says the CDC, which also compiled data from 2001 through 2015 showing that suicide rates for black children ages 5 through 12 were roughly two times higher than those of similarly aged white children.
Sen. Ernst said that she is “working with Democrats and Republicans to ensure that state and local educational agencies that receive federal grants for mental health support implement evidence-based suicide prevention and awareness programs.”
Toward that goal, S. 1543 would require states, public schools and tribes to implement evidence-based suicide prevention policies and trainings in order to receive certain grants, including those to promote youth mental health awareness among schools and communities and to improve access to services for school-age youth, according to a bill summary provided by Sen. Ernst’s office.
The legislation also would require the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to publish best practices for student suicide awareness and prevention training, as well as provide technical assistance in implementing such policies, the summary says.