“I worry about the safety of my kids.” Perhaps this resonates with you.
For three consecutive years, firearm injuries have been the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 17 in the United States. Further, firearms are the leading cause of death by suicide in each of the states where Intermountain operates, and deaths by suicide in our region is higher than the rest of the country.
That’s why Intermountain Health has been working to get gun locks into as many homes as possible and provide trainings and educational materials about firearm safe storage best practices. Protecting our communities is the driving force behind our collaboration with the Ad Council and a coalition of health care and business leaders on a nationwide social impact program to further firearm safety efforts to protect the youth in our country.
While many may believe that firearms are a divisive topic with limited opportunity for alignment on solutions, research shows common ground exists, especially around the impact of firearm injury on children and teens.
This first-of-its-kind effort, “Agree to Agree,” builds on shared beliefs of Americans to raise awareness of the fact that everyone — both gun owners and non-gun owners — can agree that firearms shouldn’t be the leading cause of death for children and teens in this country.
“Preventing firearm injuries remains a top Intermountain Health focus, working in partnership with the communities we serve,” said Rob Allen, Intermountain president and CEO. “Over the past year, caregivers have done extensive work in the areas of suicide prevention and gun safety.”
Gunlocks and firearm safe storage are proven to be effective because they put time and distance between a person in a suicide crisis and lethal means. Intermountain provides free gun locks across our six-state footprint.
“By raising awareness and offering training and resources, we help to both save lives and remove the stigma around conversations on gun safety and mental health,” Rob said. “We, too, have found that there are many people in our communities who agree with our stance on this important work.”
Gun locks and trainings available
If you’re interested in distributing safe storage information and gun locks in your community, you can request them through this form for free. The Community Health team also has state and region-specific gun lock brochures to provide local support in our communities.
Intermountain also offers community mental health and suicide prevention training such, as Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM). The CALM approach teaches professionals, like employees, teachers, and librarians, how to have compassionate conversations with individuals and families struggling with suicide ideation. They learn how to build on the common ground shared with gun owners, with the goal for them to voluntarily store their firearms safely while they seek help. The CALM training is free for any health or behavioral health provider or anyone working on suicide prevention in our geographic footprint. Healthcare professionals can receive free CME/CEU credits.
Additional resources