By Phillip Reese - Bee Staff Writer
Published 5:04 pm PDTMonday, September 24, 2007

The state will establish an Office of Suicide Prevention tasked with coordinating deterrence, conducting research and collecting data on suicide, the state's mental health director wrote in a letter to an assembly member earlier this month.

At the same time, an advisory group has created a draft plan that will guide the spending of $14 million for the next four years in funding earmarked for suicide prevention.

Earlier this year, the Bee reported that suicides among adults under 25 in Sacramento County increased more than 60 percent since the start of the decade. Two recent nationwide studies - one conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the other by the American Journal of Psychiatry -- also showed youth suicides increasing sharply.

The new office will have several objectives, including:

• Getting state agencies like the Department of Public Health and the Department of Education working together to address suicide.

• Serving as a central depository for suicide data generated by various state and local agencies.

• Establishing a list of practices that are effective at reducing suicide.

In a Sept. 7 letter to Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, whose bill this session called for the creation of the Office of Suicide Prevention, Stephen Mayberg, director of the Department of Mental Health said the office would be established soon by executive order. The office will be funded through revenue from the Mental Health Services Act.