National Survivors of Suicide Day
Watch Previous Programs
Every year, on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, survivors of suicide loss join together from over 200 locations in the United States and abroad for support, healing, information and empowerment. The day of conferences connects survivors through an Internet broadcast. The 90-minute programs from the previous two years are now available on the AFSP website so survivors can watch free of charge, anytime. The 2008 program is also available for viewing in Spanish.
ABOUT THE 2008 PANELISTS:
- Luanne Cali lost her former partner, Linda Konu, a 48-year old construction site manager, in 2004. Luanne and Linda met in the Army in 1975, and were “partners for four years, best friends forever, and soul mates.”
- Lizette Martinez lost her older brother, 24-year old Miguel, in 2004. He was a recording and sound engineer.
- Peggy Morse’s son and only child, Bryan Michael Gajdarik, took his own life in June of 1997; he had just turned 16.
- Christian Pitkin lost his father Bill, a longtime senior executive in the insulation and fiberglass industry, in 2003, at the age of 67. Christian describes his Dad as the person he would “always first go to for advice.”
- Debra Clancy’s husband and high school sweetheart, David, an U.S. Air Force veteran and electrician, took his own life in February, 1995, at the age of 35. At the time of David’s death, Deb had three young children, ages 7, 9, and 11.
- Robert Gebbia has been AFSP’s Executive Director since 1997.
- Joanne Harpel became AFSP’s first-ever Director of Survivor Initiatives in 2002 after having served on AFSP’s national Board of Directors. She is a survivor of the 1993 suicide of her brother Stephen, who was a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.
- John R. (“Jack”) Jordan, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice specializing in bereavement, is the founder and Director of the Family Loss Project, a research and clinical group based in Boston, MA. Dr. Jordan has worked with survivors for more than 25 years, and is the co-author of After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief, available through AFSP.
- Sidney Zisook, M.D., is a Professor and Director of the Residency Training Program for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Zisook is best known for his work on bereavement, stress, mood, suicide and psychiatric education, for which he has won numerous awards.
ABOUT THE 2007 PANELISTS:
- Mumtaz Bari Brown lost her husband, 53-year old Dr. Ronald Brown, in 2002 after a long battle with depression. He was a physician.
- Morgan Gable lost her 32 year-old son, Brian, to suicide in April of 2005. Brian had made a previous suicide attempt and battled an addiction to methamphetamine.
- Tyler Krus is an 18-year-old college student at Johns Hopkins University. His 45-year-old mother, Rosemary died by suicide two years ago, just three years after Tyler's 43-year-old father, David, died of a sudden stroke. Tyler helps take care of his 16-year-old brother, Nicholas.
- Steve Newcomer’s son, Andrew, a college senior, took his own life in 1999. Steve is also the survivor of his mother Jean’s suicide in 1974, when Steve was 23 years old, and just one year after the death of his father from a brain tumor.
- Margo Requarth lost her mother, Dolores, to suicide in 1951, when Margo was not quite four years old. A licensed family therapist, Margo leads grief support groups, trains volunteer facilitators and police chaplains, and provides crisis intervention to schools and community groups. In honor of her mother, she published After a Parent’s Suicide: Helping Children Heal.
- Edward Dunne, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City and the survivor of the suicide of his brother, Tim, in the early 1970s.
- Robert Gebbia has been AFSP’s Executive Director since 1997.
- Joanne Harpel became AFSP’s first-ever Director of Survivor Initiatives in 2002 after having served on AFSP’s national Board of Directors. She is a survivor of the 1993 suicide of her brother Stephen, who was a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School.
- John R. (“Jack”) Jordan, Ph.D., a psychologist in private practice specializing in bereavement, is the founder and Director of the Family Loss Project, a research and clinical group based in Boston, MA. Dr. Jordan has worked with survivors for more than 25 years, and is the co-author of After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief, available through AFSP.
- Katherine Shear, M.D., is a Professor of Psychiatry in Social Work at the Columbia University School of School Work in New York City. Her research includes studies on bereavement-related depression and anxiety and the relationship between clinical and spiritual grief.
