{"id":13702,"date":"2022-09-22T14:24:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T18:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=13702"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T01:31:15","slug":"theres-a-ripple-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/theres-a-ripple-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThere\u2019s a ripple effect\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Members of UMES Counseling Services hand out pamphlets to students at the Student Services Center.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

September is dually recognized as \u201cSuicide Prevention Month\u201d and \u201cRecovery Awareness Month,\u201d with both shedding greater light on issues that not only have a devastating effect on the people involved but also on friends and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to bring greater knowledge of the two issues, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore\u2019s Counseling Services held observances with two events focusing on both suicide awareness and overdose awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, Counseling Services, along with the Student Government Association, hosted \u201cMy Story Continues;\u201d which focused on offering counseling resources to anyone in the campus community who may be struggling with depression. The event culminated with a memorial walk around the Student Services Center courtyard in honor of those who have been impacted by the loss of a loved one to suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSuicide Prevention Month is recognized all across the world \u2026 and we thought it was very important to bring that awareness to our campus,\u201d said Dr. Malkia Johnson<\/strong>, the director of counseling services at UMES. \u201cSuicide affects everybody. Not just a certain demographic \u2013 rich, poor, Black, white, different cultures, and so everyone\u2019s affected by suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson said according to statistics by the World Health Organization (WHO), 700,000 people die by suicide annually, and for every person who dies by suicide, 20 people are thinking about death by suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen someone dies by suicide there\u2019s a ripple effect, within the family, the community, and friends, so we thought it was important to bring and shed light on that topic and normalize seeking help,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Counseling Services will also host a \u201cRecovery Month\u201d table in partnership with the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) Prevention Center in the SSC Rotunda on Sept. 22 in order to help promote and educate students about recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Members of UMES’s Counseling Services and local mental health vendors pose for a photo in front of the Student Services Center<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAddiction recovery is very, very personal (to me),\u201d said Melanie Spencer<\/strong>, a counselor in Counseling Services and a UMES graduate. \u201cI worked almost ten years in recovery and one of the positions I had was overseeing a recovery program in the community where we worked with complex trauma and substance using disorders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very, very passionate about continuing the work here as much as I can. On campus, we don\u2019t see the issues of the heroin opioid crisis as you may see in outpatient programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson and Spencer added that there are numerous resources for members of the campus community to utilize for any issues involving mental health crises of any nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur message is also about hope and resilience,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cSo, together we can do this and we can be stronger and support one another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a student in a mental health crisis or considering suicide, you can call the UMES Counseling Services Center<\/a> at 410-651-6499 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Online referrals and walk-ins are also welcome. You can also text 988 to be connected with a live professional.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK), Life Crisis Maryland Hotline at 800-422-0009, the Mobile Crisis Hotline at 410-931-2214, or by texting \u2018HOME\u2019 to 741741.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For help with issues with substance abuse, call the Substance Abuse National Helpline at 1-800-662- HELP (4357), or go online to https:\/\/www.samhsa.gov\/. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September is dually recognized as \u201cSuicide Prevention Month\u201d and \u201cRecovery Awareness Month,\u201d with both shedding greater light on issues that not only have a devastating effect on the people involved but also on friends and family. In an effort to bring greater knowledge of the two issues, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore\u2019s Counseling Services…Read more \u201cThere\u2019s a ripple effect\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1559,"featured_media":13706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-13702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13702"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/scm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=13702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}