September Is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

September 1st marks the beginning of National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

For us, it’s a reminder of why Check On Your Teammates started in the first place. It didn’t start as a big organization or some complicated idea. It started with something simple: check on the people around you.

We’ve all had teammates in our lives. The people we work with. The people we grew up with. Friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, teammates from years ago. The people we see every day and the people we haven’t heard from in a while.

And sometimes, the people who seem like they’re doing just fine are fighting battles we know nothing about.

That’s why we started Check On Your Teammates. We wanted to create a reminder that looking out for each other matters. That sending a text matters. Making the phone call matters. Sitting down with someone and actually asking, “How are you doing?” matters.

Over the years, Check On Your Teammates has grown, but the mission hasn’t changed.

We continue to check in.
We check in when someone seems off.
We check in when someone goes quiet.
We check in when everything looks completely normal.
And we check in on the strong ones too.

You don’t need to have the perfect words. You don’t need to have the answers. Sometimes you just need to remind someone that they have a teammate in their corner. This month, we’re asking everyone in our community to make checking in a habit.

Think about someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

Send the text.

Make the call.

Ask the question.

And when they answer, take the time to actually listen.
Suicide prevention isn’t something we should only talk about during September. This month gives us an opportunity to bring more attention to it, but our responsibility to each other continues long after September ends.

Check On Your Teammates