Youth Suicide Prevention for Mental Health Professionals and Health Care Providers

The links below provide national resources on suicide prevention, intervention, and healing for health care provider. For more information on VDH's Youth Suicide Prevention Program and additional resources click here.

Mental Health Professionals

Assessing and Managing Suicide Risk: Core Competencies (AMSR), is a one-day workshop for mental health professionals that will help them better assess suicide risk, plan treatment, and manage the ongoing care of at-risk clients.

Recognizing and Responding to Suicide Risk: Essential Skills for Clinicians, offered is a two day interactive training based on established core competencies that mental health professionals need in order to effectively assess and manage suicide risk. The goal is for clinicians to confident, competent, and prepared to meet the needs of distressed clients and their families.

Suicide Assessment Five-Step Evaluation and Triage (SAFE-T), Screening for Mental Health (PDF). The SAFE-T pocket card is available for free. It can be downloaded from the Screening for Mental Health website: www.MentalHealthScreening.org.

Health Care Providers

Suicide Prevention Toolkit for Rural Primary Care
A web-based toolkit that contains information and tools to implement suicide prevention practices and overcome the significant hurdles this life-saving work faces in primary care practices. The Toolkit offers the support necessary to establish the primary care provider as one member of a team, fully equipped to reduce suicide risk among their patients.

Hard copies of the tool kit are available free of charge from DIVP. If you would like a copy please contact Christina Sloan at 804-864-7736 or christina.sloan@vdh.virginia.gov.

Suicide Assessment Five-Step Evaluation and Triage (SAFE-T), Screening for Mental Health (PDF). The SAFE-T pocket card is available for free. It can be downloaded from the Screening for Mental Health website: www.MentalHealthScreening.org.

PROSPECT (Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly: Collaborative Trial)

Emergency Department Health Care Providers

Emergency Department Means Restricted Education

"Is Your Patient Suicidal?" Emergency Department Poster and Clinical Guide

Brochures regarding treatment and follow-up for those seen in an emergency department after a suicide attempt:

• After an Attempt: A Guide for Medical Providers in the Emergency Department Taking Care of Suicide Attempt Survivors, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• After an Attempt: A Guide for Taking Care of Your Family Member After Treatment in the Emergency Department, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
• After an Attempt: A Guide for Taking Care of Yourself After Your Treatment in the Emergency Department, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
  For free copies of these documenst, please contact SAMHSA's National Mental Health Information Center at www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov, 1-800-789-2647, or 1-866-889-2647 (TDD)

Treatment

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescent Depression

Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Multisystemic Therapy With Psychiatric Supports (MST-Psychiatric)

Research and Reports

Evaluation and Tratement of Patients with Suicidal Ideation.
(Gliatto, M, Rai, A. American Family Physician 1999; 59(6): 1500-13.)

American Academy of Pediatrics Resources for Safety and Violence Prevention Counseling in Office Practice

Press Release: Cognitive Therapy Reduces Youth Suicide
(National Institute of Mental Health, 2005)

Approaching the Suicidal Patient.
(Stovall, J & Domino, F. American Family Physician 2003; 68: 1814-13.)

Public health training on the prevention of youth violence and suicide an overview.
(Browne A, Barber CW, Stone DM, Meyer AL. Am J Prev Med 2005; 29(5 Suppl 2): 233-9.)

Suicide prevention in primary care: Careful questioning, prompt treatment can save lives.
(Hamilton, NG. Postgraduate Medicine Online 2000; 108(6).)

Child Suicide and the Schools
(Pediatrics, 2000; 106(5): 1167.)

Policies and Position Statements on Suicide

American Academy of Pediatrics

School Nurses Association