Event & Training Types: General Webinar

This three-part workshop series will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and tools to enhance your suicide prevention communication efforts. 

After attending this workshop series, you will be able to:

• Describe the importance of strategic planning for communication
• Apply the components of the Framework for Successful Messaging 
• Identify the right message and channel for your audience
• Identify other program components that should be in place to enhance the success of your communication 
• Describe the importance of creating a safe and positive narrative
• Develop an evaluation plan for your communication

To access a series of five-to-six-minute webinar clips adapted from this workshop series, along with downloadable worksheets to help you put these skills into practice, visit our resource page on strategic communication planning.

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Archived Webinar

Strategic Communication Session 3 Slides

Meeting 3 Summary

Meeting 3 Transcript

Suicide and drug overdose deaths in the United States, regardless of age or race, have increased since 2001 and the rate of drug overdose death surpassed that of suicide in 2015 (CDC WISQARS, 2018). There are shared risk factors for suicide and substance abuse, including depression, trauma history, hopelessness, and impulsivity (SAMHSA, 2015). Research indicates that individuals who struggle with substance abuse disorders can also be at increased risk for suicide. For example, in one study, adults who abused opioids at least weekly were more likely to engage in suicide planning and attempts (Ashrafioun, Bishop, Conner, & Pigeon, 2017). Individuals who struggle with substance misuse and abuse are at higher risk for suicide, health care providers undoubtedly encounter these challenging and complex patients. Systems that have adopted a Zero Suicide framework are well suited to embed best practices and training that directly targets the impact of substance abuse on suicide.

This webinar will highlight innovative ways that health and behavioral health care organizations are changing organizational practices and providing improved care for patients with substance abuse disorders who are at heightened risk for overdose and suicide. By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to (1) identify ways to improve staff attitudes and confidence towards working with patients at risk for suicide and overdose deaths, (2) share unique patient engagement and suicide care management plan considerations for this population, and (3) describe the importance of a patient-centered perspective to treating suicide risk and overdose risk concurrently.

Substance Use Disorders in the Zero Suicide Framework

When publicly communicating about suicide, it’s important to:

• highlight the solutions—rather than the problems;
• reinforce suicide is preventable;
• make sure data – if used—are strategic, safe and prevention-focused; and
• emphasize the role the public has in being there for others who are struggling or in crisis.

Learn more about how to publicly message about suicide – especially about the role the public plays in preventing suicide – as you gear up for National Suicide Prevention Month/Week in September.

Messaging matters! Communications can be a powerful tool to promote resiliency, encourage help-seeking, publicize prevention successes, and encourage actions that help prevent suicide. It is critical to ensure that messages coming from the suicide prevention messengers are accurate, safe and effective so that they also shape and transform the public conversation. Positive and safe messaging can help individuals in crisis find the help they need and educate the public about how they can be involved in preventing suicide.

Research that shows the public is supportive of suicide prevention, but is less clear about how to take action. In addition to using best practices when crafting public messaging, it’s also essential your messages include a focus on how the public can take action to save lives. 

As you begin planning ahead for Suicide Prevention Month/Week, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention – the nation’s public-private partnership with over 250+ partner organizations – invites you to a webinar focused on suicide prevention messaging. The Action Alliance is committed to convening its various partners (both within the public and private sectors) to leverage opportunities for collaboration and alignment, which is why we will be uniting the field around a shared messaging effort in September to make an even bigger, coordinated impact and reach more people about the role the public has in preventing suicide.

Join us on July 25th for Developing and Delivering Effective Suicide Prevention Messaging: We All Play a Role! The webinar will highlight the Action Alliance’s Framework for Successful Messaging (an online resource that provides guidance and resources for messages disseminated to the public by suicide prevention messengers) and provide an overview about our collective #BeThere messaging efforts in September. 

The webinar will provide:

• Tips and guidance about messaging to the public
• Guidance about how you can be a more effective suicide prevention messenger
• An understanding of how to incorporate #BeThere messaging into your current efforts

Webinar Speakers:
Mark Weber
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs/Human Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Executive Committee and Changing the Conversation Priority Initiative Member,
Action Alliance

Dr. April Foreman
Suicide Prevention Coordinator
Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System
Department of Veterans Affairs
Changing the Conversation Priority Initiative Member,
Action Alliance

Webinar Facilitator:
Kimberly Torguson
Associate Director of Communications
National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention

The webinar will be an engaging dialogue with messaging experts. It is an opportunity to ask questions about messaging, learn about how you can incorporate helpful and action-oriented messages about the role the public has in preventing suicide, and share with others your messaging plans for suicide prevention month. 

Developing and Delivering Effective Suicide Prevention Messaging! We All Play a Role

The presence of a competent, confident, and well-trained workforce at every level of care is critical to individuals at risk of suicide. Data from more than 15,000 health and behavioral health care staff who utilized an online Zero Suicide Workforce Survey indicates that, among those interact with patients or clients, only half had received training in suicide screening or risk assessment and only about a third felt strongly that they had the appropriate knowledge, skill, confidence, and comfort in providing care for individuals at risk of suicide.

It is clear that opportunities remain for improving workforce readiness and ensuring that staff are adequately trained to care for individuals at risk for suicide. While assessing workforce readiness is critical, organizational leadership must also acknowledge and take responsibility for training deficits and prepare staff to deliver evidence-based suicide care. The Zero Suicide Workforce Survey is a free online tool that organizations can use to assess staff knowledge and comfort in working with individuals at risk for suicide.

In this webinar, you will hear from leaders of three health care organizations who used the results of the Zero Suicide Workforce Survey to establish a culture where staff training is a critical and ongoing part of providing quality care. By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to: (1) describe how surveying staff can support system-wide culture change critical to patient safety and continuous quality improvement, (2) understand staff readiness to provide suicide-specific care, and (3) explain the purpose and utility of the Zero Suicide Workforce Survey to health care staff. 

Assessing Workforce Readiness to Provide Comprehensive Suicide Care

During this webinar, SPRC briefly describes how care transitions fit into the effective prevention model. This webinar will also explore partnerships with on- and off-campus partners such as inpatient hospital units, emergency rooms, local nonprofits, outpatient providers, campus health and counseling centers, and other key players to create a safety net for at-risk students.

Three campus grantees share their unique care transition workflows from the perspective of a medium-sized private school (St. John’s University), a large public school (University of Michigan), and a small rural community college (Feather River Community College).

Speakers will also share the challenges they have faced and how they overcame them. 

Archived Webinar

Webinar Slides

Webinar Transcript

Does your state have the roads to build a suicide prevention superhighway, or are they full of potholes? Join SPRC, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and NAMI New Hampshire (NAMI NH) for a webinar highlighting SPRC’s newly released Recommendations for State Suicide Prevention Infrastructure. Presenters will describe how to use the recommendations and offer tools for success. NAMI NH Executive Director Ken Norton will share lessons learned in building state suicide prevention infrastructure and how it has made a difference.

Additional Resources:

• Using the SPRC State Suicide Prevention Infrastructure Recommendations (AFSP Talking Points for Advocates)
• State Suicide Prevention Infrastructure Mailing List

Webinar Recording

SPRC State Infrastructure webinar 10-30-19 Slides.pdf

SPRC State Infrastructure webinar 10-30-19 Transcript.pdf

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) and partners shared SPRC’s new report, Data Infrastructure: Recommendations for State Suicide Prevention. This report is a supplement to SPRC’s Recommendations for State Suicide Prevention Infrastructure. Webinar participants learned about six concrete recommendations from the resource, focused on creating infrastructure to support data-driven decision-making in suicide prevention.

Presenters from Colorado and Texas shared examples of their states’ data infrastructure.

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Webinar Recording

Data Infrastructure: Recommendations for State Suicide Prevention

Webinar Slides-Creating a Stronger Data Infrastructure for Suicide Prevention.pdf

Transcript 2020-2-25_Public Webinar_Creating a Stronger Data Infrastructure for Suicide Prevention.pdf

Mental health professionals continue to provide therapy for patients using telehealth despite this new era of quarantine and COVID-19. This is a significant change for most but research suggests that telehealth can be just as effective as face-to-face therapy and for some patients, it is even preferable. Many clinicians were treating patients at risk for suicide safely in outpatient settings, rarely turning to hospitalization, prior to this quarantine and can continue to provide safe and effective care using telehealth.

New patients expressing thoughts of suicide may also emerge during this time. In a time when hospitals are already beyond capacity and risk for transmission of coronavirus disease is extremely high within the walls of the physical health care setting, hospitalization or emergency department visits for people expressing thoughts of suicide should be kept to a minimum. The use of evidence-based suicide care practices can significantly reduce suicide thoughts and behaviors, even when delivered via telehealth.

This webinar addressed the use of three best practices in caring for people at risk for suicide that can be delivered easily and effectively via telehealth: safety plans, treatment that directly targets thoughts of suicide, and DBT-based self-help skills and resources that clinicians can start employing in treatment immediately as well as share with patients.
 
Speakers:

Dr. Barbara Stanley, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, Dr. David Jobes, The Catholic University of America, and Dr. Ursula Whiteside, Founder, NowMattersNow.org and Clinical Faculty, University of Washington. These three speakers are national and international experts in suicide prevention and treatment. They presented these three treatment practices with a focus on how to start using them immediately with patients via telehealth.

 
Additional Resources

Check out these short webinar excerpts in which Dr. Stanley provides concrete tips for making sure clients stay safe without having to rely on hospitalization. Take a few minutes to learn about initiating and maintaining remote contact, assessing suicide risk, and developing a safety plan remotely.

Archived Webinar

PowerPoint Slides

Supplemental Resources: Treating Suicidal Patients during COVID-19: Best Practices and Telehealth Webinar

Transcript

This training series from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) provides those working in suicide prevention with the information and skills to create and maintain partnerships to reduce access to lethal means of suicide—a part of the comprehensive approach to suicide prevention. In this webinar, we discussed how to build skills to enhance partnerships for lethal means reduction work and described how to focus your partnership’s work on a specific lethal means reduction area. Susan Keys, Ph.D. presented on her research on building partnerships with primary care providers in rural areas to talk about gun safety with patients.

Webinar Recording

Webinar Notes

Webinar Slides

In the second part of this training series, we discussed incorporating racial equity in our work to reduce access to lethal means. We then heard from Danette Gibbs, Director of Research and Strategic Planning from the Campus Suicide Prevention Center of Virginia at James Madison University, who spoke about reducing access to lethal means on college campuses. Then Eileen Zeller, consultant and former lead advisor at the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), presented on implementing Emergency Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) as a strategy to reduce firearm suicide deaths.

Webinar Recording

Webinar Slides

Webinar Notes