Ask any farmer, they know farming is stressful, most know of at least one individual who has committed suicide, or they may know of someone or have concerns about depression about a friend or neighbor. Recent research out of University of Kentucky finds that for every suicide, 135 people are affected. There is a community impact of this mental health crisis which requires a community solution.

Through cooperation with the South East Center for Agriculture Health and Injury Prevention,  the Agriculture & Natural Resources Agent brought QPR to the local agriculture community and fellow ANR agents.  An acronym for Question, Persuade, & Refer; QPR provides training to assist individual to provide hope for others who may be experiencing a crisis.  

A total of five QPR training sessions were conducted reaching 45 local agriculture leaders and 52 Kentucky ANR Agents.  An agriculture leader from Adair County stated;  "Anyone who works with a lot of people, especially farmers who may be going through financial stresses should be trained in QPR".  A Kentucky Extension Agent stated that completing the training provided her the courage to start addressing the issue in her local community.   

Post program surveys have indicated that participants are significantly more willing to intervene with an individual with thoughts of suicide post-training (0.21 logits; p<0.01). Males experienced twice as much growth compared to mean growth as all respondents who completed both pre and post questionnaires (0.43 logits).