Anti-bullying seminar held at Morrison schools
Speak Out Against Suicide , a suicide prevention and awareness organization, invited a speaker from Stand for the Silent to give an anti-bullying seminar to students in Morrison on Wednesday.
Kirk Smalley's son died from suicide more than 14 years ago. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death in children ages 10 through 14.
Kirk Smalley said his son was a victim of bullying. Now he dedicates his time to showing students how damaging bullying can be.
"I got bullies that message me that say I never knew, that what I was doing could cause this thing to happen, like what happened to Ty," Kirk Smalley, co-founder of Stand for the Silent, said. "Bullying tends to be a generational thing. If your mom and dad were bullies, then they're going to raise a pack of bullies and then you raise your kid to be a bully and then they raise theirs and then so on and so forth. If we can break that cycle for one generation, then you think of how many people affect over the course of a period of time."
Speak Out Against Suicide is on a similar mission to spread suicide awareness. A spokesperson says the issues that kids face need to be talked about.
"A lot of it is due to bullying, or family situations or trauma, there's so many things I probably don't even have enough words to say how many things can affect those students, but just knowing that they have somebody there to support them and having presentations like this make it real because a lot of people don't want to talk about things," said Shawn Felts, a member of Speak Out Against Suicide.
Smalley believes telling his story helps kids understand there are people who can help.
"Most of those kids that have that plan think that they're all alone in this," Smalley said. "They think that nobody gets it, nobody cares, nobody knows what I'm going through. We have to learn that we can have those conversations, those hard conversations, and we can talk it out, we don't have to act it out. And that's the only way we're gonna stop it from happening in this world."
Kirk Smalley will share his story to Easton Valley students Thursday.
Call, text or chat with the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988 if you or someone you know is in a crisis situation.
