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UNI holds event focused on suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The University of Northern Iowa is hosting a PTSD Awareness & Suicide Prevention Conference today. It’s free and open to students, faculty, staff, veterans, friends and family members, health care professionals, and anyone from the community.
Henry Korf, UNI’s military and veteran student services coordinator, says the conference on the Cedar Falls campus is designed to be an informational clearinghouse.
“Family members who are caregivers of veterans, or veterans who are experiencing the consequences of PTSD or suicide ideation, they will be able to find some information to receive help,” Korf says. “We have classes going on for CALM, which is Counseling Against Lethal Means.”
There are keynote presentations planned, in addition to training sessions, workshops, and breakout sessions, on topics like: V-A Programs & Resources for Women Veterans, Self-Compassion and PTSD, Suicide Prevention in Older Veterans, and Assessing Risks in Health Care and Safety Planning.
Korf says the shift from active duty to civilian life can be very difficult for some people.
“That first year of getting out of uniform is our highest percentage of veterans who do commit or attempt to commit suicide,” Korf says. “We do get a lot of veterans when they transition from the uniform, a lot of them seek out higher education opportunities, so we have quite a few veterans on campus, and it’s our attempt to help support them as they transition.”
While the term PTSD has only been around a few decades, the lasting mental impacts of exposure to trauma in warfare date back millennia. Korf says it can impact everyone differently.
“You could have two service members at the same location experiencing some of the very same things, one could walk away with PTSD symptoms, and the other one may not,” Korf says. “It really depends on the experiences that that individual had prior to that experience, and how you support that individual as they come out of that experience.”
The stigma surrounding the disorder is lessening, Korf says, as the number of Vietnam veterans who say they suffered from PTSD has risen from around eight percent during the 1970s to more than 30 percent now.
The free conference is scheduled to run from 8 AM to 3:30 PM in the Maucker Union Ballrooms on the UNI campus.
