RE LOG - Spring 2017

SPRING 2017 Ransom Everglades LOG 19 to actually be able to begin to help address this humanitarian crisis and reduce this preventable loss of life. Just to give some perspective to the public health meaning of the issue, the CDC has just let our nation know that life expectancy in the United States has gone down, with suicide being a major contributor, rendering us the only developed nation in the world where it is not increasing. We do not yet have cures for cancer or heart disease, but we have seen that suicide is “curable.” The state of Utah announced that since asking these questions they have lowered their state suicide rate, reversing an alarming upward trend over the past decade. It is humbling to have any part of reducing a leading cause of death and contributing at all to alleviating one of the greatest tragedies we face as a nation. We read every day about mass violence and we know that EDUCATION Brown University, BS in psychology Yeshiva University, PhD in clinical psychology HONORS Anne Vanderbilt Award, 2016 Responsible 100, 2016 Spero Award for Excellence and Profound Commitment to Community Psychiatry, 2014 Save a Child’s Heart Honoree, 2013 Education Leadership Award, Kaufman Music Center, 2013 New York State Suicide Prevention Award, 2013 Turnaround Impact Award, Turnaround for Children, 2011 Education Philanthropist of the Year, AVENUE and New York Family, 2010 Most distinguished alumna of graduate school for past 50 years, Yeshiva University, 2007 100 Most Influential New Yorkers, New York Magazine, 2006 Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber’s work has been presented to Congress, discussed in White House and Pentagon keynotes, adopted by the Centers for Disease Control and mandated by the FDA. As a young professor at Columbia, Posner Gerstenhaber was helping to lead a National Institute of Mental Health study of adolescent suicide when she identified a critical gap: there was no scientific strategy for identifying those at risk of taking their own lives. Posner and her team of experts led the effort to fix the problem, creating a scientific method to identify those likely to attempt suicide so lives could be saved with intervention. Her questionnaire has been compared to the introduction of antibiotics and is saving lives in 45 nations on six continents, helping make a dent in a seemingly intractable problem. Posner has also been lauded for her philanthropic involvement and education reform impact. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber ’85 screening can help here. The former deputy secretary of the Department of Education under President Obama has noted that these questions can keep our 64 million children safe and I am incredibly grateful to have just entered into a partnership with the NRA to work on suicide prevention to put these questions in the hands of gun owners and their families. How did word spread about the Columbia method of identification? It started very bottom-up and grass roots. I went from Army base to Army base, community to community, to do trainings. Now 48 states and many countries have implemented policy and that took a tremendous amount of advocacy and word-of-mouth. It is exciting to see that top-down has met bottom-up, and when there is something that works it can and will spread – with the right partners (like Founder and Principal Investigator of the Columbia Lighthouse Project Story continues, page 65