Suicide Prevention Toolkit

Garrett Lee Smith Youth Suicide Prevention Toolkit

Welcome to Mental Health America of Wisconsin's "Getting Started" toolkit. This toolkit provides you with resources and tools to assist you in creating your youth suicide project. This toolkit assumes its audience to be a community-wide collaborative of agencies and individuals working together to prevent suicide in their community. Suicide is a public health problem and requires a comprehensive prevention approach only possible by the cooperation of multiple stakeholders. However, given the youth focus of this prevention project the school system is given special attention. Whenever possible we have included materials that are school specific and materials that are community coalition specific.

It was not our intent to include everything there is to know about suicide prevention work within this toolkit. In fact, the shear abundance of information available on this topic is somewhat overwhelming and provided us the rationale to create this toolkit. We are well aware that in today's environment of dwindling resources, everyone's agency and staff are stretched to the limit. We have therefore attempted to limit the information and resources in this toolkit to items that provide tangible information and recommendations. We have also attempted to provide you with concrete models, examples or templates to assist you in your work. We see this toolkit as dynamic. As we proceed in our prevention work and dialogue with each other we expect to learn some things.

This toolkit is divided into nine sections, each of which is essential to a successful suicide prevention initiative.

Section I, Making the Case provides documents and resources to assist you in developing a rationale for the importance of suicide prevention work in your community. You will find resources to locate both national, Wisconsin and local data. Other documents teach you to "interpret the data." Finally, we have included Wisconsin statutes and policy papers you may reference in your future grant proposals.

Section II, Coalition Building, discusses the importance of doing prevention work within a coalition. For far too long, schools have been asked to shoulder the burden of youth suicide prevention alone. The reality of youth suicide is that it impacts everyone and everyone has a unique role to play in its prevention. This section provides you with a list of essential partners, information on how to build, maintain and sustain your coalition. Many of these resources include useful worksheets, tips and ideas. We have also provided two examples of successful coalitions at the county level from La Crosse and Sheboygan Counties. It is our hope they stimulate your creativity and increase your local network of experts. In addition we list several examples of Wisconsin-wide coalitions that you may find useful. Later in this toolkit we refer to both the Maine and New Jersey Models and they are also excellent examples of collaborative approaches.

Section III, Youth Screening Programs and Classroom Curriculum, directs its attention to the audience we are primarily serving - youth. This section offer you an overview of all the evidence-based youth suicide prevention screening tools as well as some information about what we mean when we say a program is "evidence-based." We provide you information on our own Department of Public Instruction (DPI) classroom curriculum programs and a few others to choose from.

The Gatekeeper Training, or Section IV, provides information on the evidence-based gatekeeper trainings currently available. The term "gatekeeper" refers to any individual within the community who is in a position to observe "high-risk" behaviors and take action. The goal of these trainings is to equip its participants with basic suicide prevention education and intervention skills. There are many examples of gatekeeper trainings, but we have included only those in which we have confidence. This section also includes materials specific to school-based gatekeeper trainings (e.g., designed for school staff and employees only) including the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) gatekeeper trainings. Again, there are other school staff gatekeeper trainings available but those included in this toolkit were chosen for their "best fit" with the needs and culture of Wisconsin schools. This section also includes a draft of a Gatekeeper Training Matrix from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) to assist you in comparing these programs. It is within this section that you will find fact sheets on risk and protective factors and lethal means restriction, both of which are significant components of any gatekeeper training.

Complementary Programs, or Section V, is intended to address classroom curriculum that focuses on increasing youth assets that have been shown to be protective factors in suicide prevention. Specifically, problem solving, coping skills and conflict resolution skills are important elements of resiliency that can reduce the likelihood of suicide (refer to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center's fact sheet on risk and protective factors in Section IV). This section includes classroom curriculum designed to enhance these skills. Another essential component to mental health and suicide prevention is safety. Youth need environments that are both physically and psychologically safe in order to flourish. Therefore, programs that address bullying and violence naturally complement suicide prevention programs by contributing to an environmental context within which these programs can succeed. Section V gives you recommendations for these complementary programs.

In Section VI, we address the topic of  Crisis Planning and Postvention, both from the school-based perspective and the community coalition perspective. This section addresses how to develop and implement a school crisis plan. We have included three examples of crisis plans, one from the Madison School District, one from the Eau Claire School District and one from the Roseville School District in Minnesota. While we do not recommend simply replicating anyone's crisis plan, we hope these "real world" examples provide you with some good ideas. This section also has recommendations from the Statewide Crisis Intervention Network that address crisis planning from a community-wide perspective. Postvention issues are addressed with information from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and recommendation on cultural competency from the National Association of School Psychologists. We have included a school-based postvention model with the Maine guidelines and a community postvention model with Frameworks. Section VI is where you will find specific recommendations on media guidelines as well.

Section VII, entitled  Evaluation Tools, addresses the issue of prevention programming and ways to determine the impact of that programming.

The issue of sustainability is addressed Section VIII, or Funding Your Youth Suicide Prevention Program. Funding is the last section in the toolkit because to a very real degree, continued funding for your initiative will be based upon how successful you are in establishing a coalition of stakeholders, implementing both comprehensive programming, and documenting your results with effective evaluation tools. Section VIII outlines some potential funding sources on the national and state level. We also provide a few suggestions for creative local funding options. Our belief is that the stronger and more diverse your community coalition, the wider your opportunities for ongoing funding will be.

Section IX, or Additional Resources, is a list of contact people and national and state suicide resource organizations. Lastly, you will find a list of books on the topic of suicide. Some of these books are resource reading but many are titles you may choose to share with youth or other gatekeepers as part of your project. We encourage you to contact John Humphries at the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) for additional information on the appropriate context and audience for this reading.

The MHA would like to extend its sincere and heartfelt gratitude to several people, without whom this toolkit would not be possible. For her tremendous breadth and depth of knowledge of all aspects of suicide prevention, we thank Katherine Wooten of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). Mental Health America of Wisconsin (MHA) has long collaborated with the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in its suicide prevention work and this toolkit is no exception. We are in deep gratitude to John Humphries of the DPI for his expertise on all things school related and especially for instrumental assistance with Sections III, IV and V of this toolkit. A special thank you goes to the Madison School District and the Roseville School District of Roseville Minnesota for their generosity in sharing their crisis plans with us and to La Crosse County for the example of their coalition resource.

Funding for development and reproduction of this toolkit was made possible, in part, by grant SM57386 from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and from funding from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services (DHFS)/Bureau of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. The views expressed in the toolkit do not necessarily reflect the official policies of either the federal Department of Health and Human Services or the DHFS; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government or the State of Wisconsin.

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