MACON, Ga. — The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says suicide is the third-leading cause of death for people ages 15 to 24.
Central High School counselors aim to prevent that from happening with their "Sources of Strength" program.
"When it comes to Sources of Strength, I get very excited over it, because when it was first introduced to me last year, I was going through a very, very rough time," high school sophomore Khari Frazier said.
Sources of Strength helped Frazier work through her emotions when she started high school.
"I had no idea how to handle things the correct way. I would be upset and unhealthily mad and not really figure out how to express those emotions in the correct, responsible way," Frazier said.
Central High School Counselor Amber Lamar saw that many of their students had similar behaviors which she says often leads to thoughts of suicide.
"The number of suicide ideations that came across my desk or just students even thinking about suicide, or even attempting suicide, it was really traumatizing," Lamar said.
Head counselor Joy Brown heard about Sources of Strength from the Cobb County School System and decided to bring it to Central.
"We're doing a six-hour training where the students are doing a of lot team building activities, they're learning about the sources of the strength wheel which is a list of ways that we're encouraging the students to build strength from," Brown said.
It's a peer-focused program that encourages students to support each other. Senior Sarah Blair and Sophomore Javian Williams feel closer to their classmates.
"It wasn't going to be like I was scaring them with what I was saying or I was putting too much on them because I knew that they were equipped to deal with what I was saying, so we could deal with it together and we could work through what we were feeling together," Blair said.
"We all have different viewpoints of one subject and to hear different people's viewpoints, it makes it better and we learn to like listen to each other," Williams said.
Central's had the program for two years.
The first year, about 50 students and faculty members participated. This year, more than 70 signed up.
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