Moving on: Preventing the next William Freund incident.....

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Much discussion since this trajedy. Lots of second thoughts. Let those grieve who wish to continue. I am ready to move on. What have we learned from this? What can this list and other lists, advocacy organizations, support groups do to keep our crisis-level people alive?

Let me share some suggestions:

All of you, in your own community, should know of local crisis hotlines available. Just in case YOU need it sometime if for no other reason.

Take any online or real-time statement seriously when it comes to people speaking of violent actions to themselves or others. Make this list a zero-tolerance area for "jokes" about this stuff and immediately refer any such comments to moderators for examination and possible referral to an on-line crisis group.

Advise and aid such people to get help immediately. Help them find help locally.

Online, set up a "crisis information page" with advice for those in crisis and how to ask for a private crisis team to talk with, chosen by the person in crisis, moderated and a private part of our list.

Seek grant money for hotlines for aspies and auties. Get training from crisis hotlne experts and employ our own people to do this.

A simple codeword can be all we need to know when to come to a listmember's aid.
My fraternity has a one-word latin codeword which is only used when a brother is in distress.
I emailed one of my old brothers that work back in 1996 when in crisis and in less than a day, got emails, phonecalls and offers of help from guys I hadn't talked to in twenty six years.

I will stop there. Let's learn from this and build more support for our peers in crisis.

Jerry Newport

This is a good proposal.

Even I would second this for it does truly have some good Ideals. For the more the Wrong Planet grows we might need a good support system to help the One that needs the Help. I also hope that We All here at the Wrong Planet can move on, let Us all Learn from this also too.

Finally, a proposal that balances the need of privacy with the need to help a person that genuinely needs it.

Thank You Jerry.

I have nothign intelligent to add save to say thank you, that is all very good advice.

Im sorry that it took a freund for us to reach this point...but I guess better late than never

Please feel free to add to my thoughts. I am not an expert here and I would not want to be one of the hotline people, due to my unpredictable bluntness.

One other thought is that maybe new registrants could be asked to provide an e-mail address and phone number of somebody to contact in the event of an emergency.

Jerry

Jerry that is an awesome idea!

Some people, of course, will put in BS emergency references but we could check the email ones and with some money, the telephone numbers too. If they aren't valid, the person could be told to do better or be suspended until he does.

The understanding with registration could be that it is temporary, pending verification of information.

Jerry

Jerry, depending on the time zones they live in maybe people could volunteer ( okay so you'd have to check out the volunteers as well of course ) to verify the phone numbers on night/weekend minutes with their cell phones? I know I would be willing to help any way I could and If I called from 9-10 p.m. my time it would only be 6-7 california time and wouldn't cost me a dime. plus my kids go to bed at 7 my time so I can pretty much be assured they would be asleep at that point as long as there was no crisis! obviously the times would need to be checked for where they are living so no one is calling in the middle of the night lol. But I truly think that is a really great idea!

eta- my night minutes begin at 9 pm my time I'm sure others have different plans but even the other countries must have some type of calling plan that would allow free minutes

bump.

How do we proceed?

not sure how to start any of it lol but feel free to contact me if there is any way at all I can help

This list can easilly put some of this into action. Just add a section for new registrants that asks for the emergency contact info I suggested.

It can also add a page admonishing all of us to refrain from baiting or flaming those who talk about self-destruction or harming others and instead, inform moderators of this type of communication immediately.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Jerry Newport

possibly is there some way to restrict people who are already registered or prevent new responses/topics being posted by them until the emergency contact info has been received? so that not only new registrants are required but all members? just to be fair to the newbies

How many members do we have? We could give everyone time to comply. How about a month? But it will take time to verify that and time is worth money. I am willing to help raise that but I need to know the parameters. I think the people doing verification should be paid to do this and also we should see if we can get some free crisis-help training for moderators and anyone else interested.

Jerry

I think that requiring members to give their private and sensitive information will be an invasion of privacy and may cause members to be less open to others. I do like the idea of crisis support hotlines, however.