September is National Suicide Prevention month.
In Florida, advocates say more lives are being lost every year because there’s not enough education and too much stigma still out there.
Judy Albelo’s life changed forever the moment her son Tony died by suicide in 2018, just before his 26th birthday.
She didn’t want his story to end there.
Spurred to action to prevent more lives from being lost, she launched a mental health and suicide prevention program in his honor called Tony’s Tribe.
Florida had more than 3,500 suicides in 2023, higher than the year before, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people.
One of Albelo’s main goals is getting rid of the stigma around mental health so when people are in pain, they know there is always help.
Albelo says looking back, her family didn’t talk much about mental health, and over the years, she’s found the stigma around those hard conversations is especially there in South Florida’s diverse communities.
“People are dying,” she said. “They’re dying because they don’t know where to turn, because the loved ones around them, their peers don’t understand what they’re looking at. They don’t know where to turn for help. They don’t know what to do.”
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.