Voices For Suicide Prevention

Ohio leader takes on a national role in postvention leadership and advocacy

Scott Light

Clinicians, mental health specialists and non-profits around Ohio know Denise Meine Graham and her passion, humanity, grace and yes, trauma, related to suicide.   She lost her son, Drey, to suicide more than 10 years ago.   She later attended a conference about supportive services and then started providing that support herself.  She founded LOSS Community Services in 2014 and since then, more than 5000 loss survivors were provided support through the LOSS Team model.   It wasn't always this way and there's certainly more support to be fostered.   But just a couple of decades ago, people had to wait more than 4 years after a suicide death to find support.   That's not a typo.  4 years.    Fast forward to today, and the man who created the LOSS model in the 90's, has tapped Denise to take over and bring this model to even more states nationwide.    As you'll hear, she's more than up for the job!