OVERCOME BIAS AND FEAR
Prepare to do suicide work with compassion and confidence
- Self-Reflection: Time to unpack our own baggage
- Countertransference
- Our own history with suicide
HOT TOPICS IN SUICIDOLOGY
Evaluate the latest developments and their impact on assessment and intervention
- The latest data, and what to do with it
- Mental health and suicide
- Alcohol and suicide
- Opioids and suicide
- Additional forms of trauma and suicide
- Aspiring to Zero Suicide
- Why “Means Matter”
- Understanding the many forms of the suicidal mind
- Soul exhaustion
COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO SUICIDE RISK ASSESSMENT & TREATMENT
Determine where to enter the prevention stream, and how to navigate successfully
- Upstream, midstream, and downstream approaches
- Build resilience and crisis inoculation
- Earlier identification and triage
- Trauma-informed care
- Learn from the experiences of suicide attempt and loss survivors
RISK ASSESSMENT
Elicit key information from clients
- The many paths to suicide
- Communicate caring: Language to impart compassion and avoid stigma
- Suicide risk assessment
- SAFE-T
- IS PATH WARM
- Ideation, plan, means, intent
- Level of risk
- Standardized assessment tools to augment clinical judgment
- Obtaining collateral information
- Types of questions to uncover suicidal ideation
- What if they say “No”?
- What if they say “Yes”?
- Behavior chain analysis
- Why “No Suicide” contracts are dead
- Best practices in risk assessment
COLLABORATIVE SAFETY AGREEMENTS AND WELLNESS PLANNING
Help clients regulate emotions and feel safe, valued and connected
- Set up a safety agreement that is more likely to be followed
- Reduce access to lethal means (C.A.L.M.)
- The “Stop, Drop, and Roll” of suicide safety planning
- Treatment strategies built on preserving choice and dignity
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy
- Relapse prevention plans
- When and how to hospitalize
MAKING MEANING
Help clients reinvest in a life worth living
- The PIE of life – brainstorm possibilities of growth
- Narrative psychology and the power of storytelling
- Cultivate social connection and re-engagement
- Choice and perspective
- Foster gratitude and a spirit of contentment after loss
- Measurements of post-traumatic growth
SAFE AND EFFECTIVE SUICIDE GRIEF & TRAUMA RESPONSE
Implement suicide grief and trauma support
- Understand the unique nature of suicide grief
- Peer-based support: Connect clients to other survivors of loss
- Access and reclaim compassion


