GEORGETOWN, Texas -- The Georgetown community is reeling after two students took their own lives over the weekend.
Georgetown students returned to school Tuesday for the first time since learning about unrelated suicides of two of their peers - an 11th grade boy at Georgetown High School and an eighth grade boy from Forbes Middle School.
On Monday, officials sent a letter home to parents telling them of the two lives lost and encouraging families to talk about what happened.
"Talking about this together will give you a chance to explain how your family understands and copes with loss," the letter said in part.
It pushed Stacey Del Signore to talk with her 12th grade daughter about suicide for the first time.
"Probably the parents of these children didn't think that it would happen either, so even though my daughter seems like the happiest girl, she's very involved with school, you never know, and I do want to have that conversation with her," Del Signore said.
Others are realizing the mental health conversation should come sooner rather than later.
"There are so many more things that we need to sit down and have actual conversations about and I guess this would be one of them," said mother Adria Dawidczik at a Georgetown playground with her three young boys.
The district brought in at least ten additional counselors at both campuses to help students work through the loss.
Georgetown Senior Grant Kell said many of them were standing in hallways, making themselves visible to students.
"I think to comfort and to maybe redirect if they needed some help," said Senior Grant Kell.
Kell says he's never talked with his parents about suicide but sees why it's important.
"I think it could really benefit a lot of teens that don't look to be at risk but they actually are," Kell said.
The district says it needs to speak with the two students' families further before it can determine whether bullying or mental illness was involved.
According to the county, males in Williamson County are more than three times as likely to commit suicide than females. Bluebonnet Trails offers mental health services, and executive director Andrea Richardson says it's important for friends and family to know what to look out for.
"If they're withdrawn or all of a sudden losing weight and not hanging out with the same group of friends any longer, or just not able to speak with a parent or a friend in the same way, they had in the past," Richardson said.
Richardson encourages parents to take the district's advice and talk to their kids about what happened.
"The healthiest thing that they can do is to start to talk about this event and to understand that this may affect them in ways that their child won't be able to articulate," she said.
Crisis resources:
- National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-TALK (8255)
- Austin Travis County Integral Care hotline: 512-472-HELP (4357).
Source : http://www.kvue.com/story/news/local/2014/10/14/georgetown-copes-with-two-student-suicides/17274009/
