Before you can begin your youth suicide prevention initiative, you must first get "buy-in" from your community (both on an individual and agency level) that this work is needed and appropriate. This section will assist you in making your case by providing data on suicide occurrence nationally, state-wide and in your community. In addition to statistics on completed suicides, you can use data on hospitalizations, and risk behaviors of your youth to strengthen your case. These materials are found under the data subsection. You can also strengthen your case by referencing how your work on the county level actualizes the Wisconsin State policies and strategies. These documents are found under the State Policies and Strategies subsection.
Data on Youth Suicide
Briefs and checklists that can be referenced for this section are: Brief 1on Information Dissemination, Brief 2 on School Climate, and Brief 4 on Administrative Issues
Local data can help communities in understanding the scope of suicidal behavior and can help in planning for prevention. The following link provides information on potential sources of data.
This site provides data on injury-related mortality. To locate the data you are looking for, you may shape your query in several categories including number of deaths, cause or manner of death (including suicide/self-inflicted injury), geographic area, years, age groups, sex, race and ethnicity.
The DHFS, in collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin, has published the first Wisconsin Violent Death Reporting System report based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new national system. The report examines the homicides and suicides that occurred throughout Wisconsin. This information may provide further insight for local programmatic and prevention initiatives. The executive summary is included in this toolkit.
Fact sheet from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services, Bureau of Community Health Promotion, Injury Prevention Program.
Describes the epidemiology of violent deaths (suicides and homicides) of youth in Wisconsin.
The results of this survey, which includes information on suicide and violence statistics and risk factors, can be found on the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's
web site. Questions related to mental health and suicide appear on pages QN24-27.The complete report is not included in this toolkit but can be accessed at the link above.
The SWYS is a regional survey developed for Southwest Wisconsin to asses risk behavioral in youth. Previously known as Teen Assessment Program (TAT).
The Search Institute and The Alliance for Youth collaborated in developing a tool to assess the healthy development of youth using the 40 developmental assets that are the building blocks of human development that help protect youth from high-risk behavior. It also assesses risk behaviors in youth. Results from this survey can be used to "make your case" for suicide prevention programming.
Offers a confidential online student survey system to assist school communities in gathering data that will yield results that can then be used in grant applications and meet evaluation requirements for Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities waiver. In addition, data can be used to monitor and plan other risk behavior prevention programs aimed at school-aged youth.
State Policies and Strategies
This strategy, based on the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, identifies the goals for suicide prevention and provides guidelines to assist communities in developing their own suicide awareness and prevention campaigns.
Mental health and mental disorders are identified as one of the eleven health priority areas in Wisconsin's public health plan for 2010.
Provides information on the legislative mandate to the Department of Public Instruction: 115.365 and the district's legislative mandate: 118.01.
