• Building Active Communities • Ideas for Action • National Suicide Prevention Week • Puget Sound Suicide Awareness Day

Some Washington communities are beginning to acknowledge youth suicide and talk more openly about it, because they don’t want to lose any more young people.

For example, the Greater Issaquah Youth and Family Network recently sponsored a well-attended forum (Issaquah Times) for school administrators, counselors, parents, students, police and other community members. After an educational presentation and discussion, small groups explored strategies for prevention, intervening with at-risk youth, and postvention. Prevention ideas included revising health curriculum to include mental wellness; educating parents through PTA and other school activities; additional school counselors; and utilizing existing peer programs. The group will prioritize strategies and identify costs.

Other communities are taking similar steps; grassroots organizations and coalitions are developing their own initiatives for suicide prevention.

Suicide Prevention Strategies
Here are a few suggestions for creating a commuity-based plan of action:
• Identify and invite people to be part of the planning process.
• Work with the local health department to determine which youth are dying or making suicide attempts, and by what means.
• Identify existing resources for prevention, assessment & crisis intervention and treatment. Are there any obstacles to accessing the resources?
• Create a plan with prevention strategies for universal, selected and indicated audiences. For example,

A universal prevention strategy might be school-based public education campaigns or educating the media on appropriate reporting of suicide.

A selected prevention strategy might be gatekeeper training or crisis intervention services.

Indicated prevention strategies might include skill-building support groups for at-risk youth or support for families of suicidal youth.

• Choose a process to measure prevention strategies to determine effectiveness
• Identify sources of income to implement prevention strategies.

Please contact us for further assistance with Strategic Plans or other community actions. For other ideas, visit our Get Involved page.