Though the Callaway Community Organizations Active in Disaster (COAD) for their work in natural disaster preparedness, but those aren't the only problems they want you to be ready for.
COAD also hosts a variety of suicide prevention courses and workshops. Spaces are still available for a suicide prevention course held Aug. 29-30 at the Callaway Health Center, hosted by COAD.
The course, titled ASIST, stands for Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training. COAD facilitator Pam Phelps said the course is a national program targeted at helping caregivers prevent immediate risk of suicide.
ASIST is one of the more in-depth courses COAD offers: also available are mental health first aid classes and QPR - Question, Persuade and Refer - a class designed to help people recognize the warning signs of suicide and encourage people at risk to get help.
"None of our programs are counseling," Phelps said, noting classes were open to the general public. "ASIST is designed to where once you're trained, you become part of a team as a resource for that person with a little followup work, but as we'd say in Callaway County, we don't take them to raise."