Collaborating on Safety Plans

Safety plans should be developed collaboratively with the person at risk of suicide to identify specific behaviors, actions, and situations that help them stay safe. It can be empowering for a person at risk of suicide to think through the sequence of events that can lead them toward suicide and determine ways to interrupt that pattern and move in a positive direction.

In this brief video, Vince Watts, MD, MPH, Director, VA Interprofessional Fellowship in Patient Safety, VA National Center for Patient Safety, provides some practical suggestions for helping an individual at risk develop a safety plan, and for gaining useful input from family members.