The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma: Crisis Reporting in the Age of Social Media

Anna Codrea-Rado quotes Emotion Technology's Christopher Gandin Le in her article about the interplay between social media and the high-stakes business of trauma reporting.

Christopher Gandin Le from Emotion Technology, a suicide prevention organization, believes it's important to hold off on information until it's verified for slightly different reasons. "Knowing the method of death and other details can always have the potential for a contagion effect," Le said.

A specialist in online outreach programs for trauma-informed care, Le believes the biggest harm a reporter can do is not in the immediate, but in the time following a trauma. "When the sand bags are gone, that's when people say, what happened to my life," Le said. It is at that point that the information about what to do, where to go and how to seek help is absolutely critical.

Read more at The Dart Center's website.

Helping Networks Help Their Users at SWSW 2013

The safety of users is a concern for any social network.  How do you create a safe place for your members, and how do you respond when they express emotional crisis?

Emotion Technology CEO, Christopher Gandin Le and the National Suicide Prevention Lifelines Ashley Womble will be presenting a workshop on creating safe spaces online entitled, "How To Handle Suicidal Users Without Freaking Out." at this years South By Southwest Interactive festival in Austin Texas.

Through the course of the session, attendees will be aprised of their legal obligations and recieve guidance as they create a plan to help users in their time of need. 

If you'll be in Austin for SXSW, we would be happy to see you there.  be sure to RSVP on the SXSW website, and bring your laptop!  For more information, please click the following link to visit the workshop listing at SXSW.com.

Suicide Loss

I got an email from a good friend about having lost a friend to suicide. There are so many resources available, but I realized there's not really a single "Oh God, you just found out that your friend died" video or resource. Might be something our team will be working on soon. Here's the list we came up with, for now.

Keep living folks - we'll keep working to make sure you have all the help you need.

• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - (www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org) offers 24/7 emotional support via their hotline - 1-800-273-TALK. The calls are free and confidential and anyone is welcome to call, especially after experiencing a loss like this.Save & Close
• http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=257&name=DLFE-457.pdf - this is a great pdf with facts about grief and loss. 
• http://www.suicidology.org/suicide-survivor-resources is a whole page of reading materials. 
• There's also this list which is written by a survivor of suicide loss named Iris Bolton. Her book is called "My Son, My Son" and is the go-to for survivor of loss literature. http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=257&name=DLFE-454.pdf

Midnight Oil

I'm up late tonight doing a lot of stuff - preparing for the awesome onslaught that is SXSWi, working on an idea for some diabetes videos, and getting amped for something that we're launching tomorrow. 

Add to that a few more proposals, and an early morning airport run and I'm pretty amped. 

Owning and operating a small business, don't let anyone tell you it's easier than working for el jeffe. 

Born This Way

I was at the launch symposium and event for the Born This Way Foundation at Harvard last week. It was amazing. Energizing. And Overwhelming. What do we do, as people practicing mental and public health, to create programs and services that help create a "Braver, Kinder World?" That's what I'm thinking about this week. That's what I'm meeting about this week. 

Love. It's about love somehow.