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STEUBENVILLE -- Somewhere in Jefferson County, odds are good there’s a child being bullied or abused, maybe even self-harming.
Unless it’s your child, you might not know it’s happening. And even if it is your child, you might not want to think about what it could lead to.
But the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics says at any given time, one in five teens is depressed, “and suicide in teens can be triggered by a seemingly small stressor and can happen quickly.”
In 2024, the Ohio Department of Health reported 243 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 took their own lives in the Buckeye State and more than half of them -- 146 kids -- used a firearm to do it.
Before he took the helm at the Jefferson County Health District, Andrew Henry said statistics like that “weren’t really something (he) paid attention to.” But now that he’s in the top seat, Henry said there’s no escaping it -- and he’s the first to admit what he sees is scary.
So far this year there have been five suicides in Jefferson County, two of them involving minors. Henry said even one is too many.
“It’s definitely been telling these last several years to see the issues our community is facing with adolescent mental health,” he said, pointing to the correlation between access to guns (they’re in 50% of households across the U.S.) and suicide (82% of adolescent suicides involve firearms.) Unsupervised teen access to firearms triples the risk of them dying by suicide.
“Obviously we’ve had some severe cases of adolescent mental health through suicides during the last several years,” Henry said. “Trying to improve youth mental health is one of the key focus points of our Community Health Improvement Plan, so ensuring there are barriers to them accessing firearms for lethal means is one step in the right direction.”
To that end, the department sought designation from the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics as a Store it Safe community. Henry said it comes down to educating kids and their families and giving them the resources they need to address what’s happening in their lives: There’s “no law change, no policy change. It’s just that we’re trying to educate the community, especially those with firearms or who have high-risk medications, that they need to lock them up,” he said.
“The stat that sticks out most to us is not necessarily the handful of children locally who have taken their lives these last several years--it’s an alarming statistic, and one we don’t want to see. But, collectively, what we’re seeing is that firearms are the No. 1 cause of suicide deaths in Jefferson County and across the country,” he added.
In the past, a Store it Safe designation would bring funding for gun lockboxes, which parents can use to safely store their firearms by making them accessible only to authorized users, but the chapter’s access to funds for that have dried up.
“They’ve run into funding issues just the same as everyone else so they don’t have any at the moment,” he said. “But us making this designation will put us at the front of the line when funds are available.”
Since the Store it Safe designation was announced at meetings of Steubenville City Council and the Jefferson County commissioners, Henry said they’ve been approached by mental health providers with access to funding for the lockboxes, including Alliance Integrated Care.
“Within the first couple of weeks of getting this information out there we’ve already established some partnerships to get these lockboxes out into the community,” he said. “Our goal is to continue to grow that.”
Bill Holt, director of the county’s prevention and recovery board, agrees properly storing firearms is “a super important issue in kids’ suicide.”
“Unlike adult suicide, kids’ suicide is much more likely to be an impulsive act rather than driven by long-term and chronic mental illness like it is in adults,” Holt said. “High levels of impulsivity and unlocked firearms make a dangerous combination.”
Henry said anything they can do to save the lives of young people is vital.
“I don’t believe the mental health crisis is going to be solved anytime soon,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We need to ensure we take notice of the different opportunities ahead that can help reduce the burden of mental health on our youth and make sure we get parents educated.”
From where he sits, Henry figures the problem “is worse than what we can see because these are situations that obviously really wreck the community, whether it’s a child hanging himself or a child shooting himself. These are situations that resonate throughout the entire community, but there are also day-to-day struggles we can’t see. I think it’s worse than what we see in the news or what’s talked about on social media.”
Parents, he said, “need to be diligent and be present in their kids’ lives, that’s what parenting is.”
“It’s a sacrifice to put them in front of yourself and engage with them, put the time in with your kids to ensure they are OK, but that’s what it comes down to,” Henry said.
“The statistic that sticks out to us the most is not necessarily the handful of children who’ve taken their lives over the last several years -- obviously it’s an alarming stat we don’t want to see -- but collectively, firearms are the No. 1 cause of suicide in Jefferson County and across the country,” he said. “If there are 12 adult (suicides) in a year, 10 of them are with firearms, so it is, without a doubt, the No. 1 cause of adult suicide and obviously there’s a trickle-down effect because we have seen it with children as well.”
Infant mortality rates in Jefferson County are much higher than the state average.
While infants aren’t going to die of a self-inflicted gun shot, Henry said, “If we can start putting the focus on ensuring kids make it to their first birthday, there’s a tie-in there. We see we need to have some work within the maternal-child health space and make sure mothers are getting adequate prenatal care because they’re engaged with their child’s life from birth, even before birth. So, if we can work on that stat and work on the firearm stats, maybe we can meet in the middle and work on adolescent health.”
In the meantime, he said getting the word out about the Store it Safe program is crucial.
“It’s very elementary, if you ask me,” he said. “It’s simply ensuring that if people have a firearm, it’s properly stored and safe from kids. It’s not earth shattering by any means, but if one person goes and gets a lockbox because it’s the right thing to do, we may save a young kid’s life.”