Resource Types: Manual

How to talk to a child about a suicide attempt in your family

This guide is intended to provide support and share resources that may be helpful if there has been a recent suicide attempt in the family. Each of three sections provides information and ideas specific to the preschooler, school age and teenager age groups. It is also available in Spanish Language.

A Guide to Using Facebook to Promote Suicide Prevention and Mental Illness Stigma Reduction

A Guide to Using Facebook to Promote Suicide Prevention and Mental Illness Stigma Reduction serves as a resource for implementing the Facebook component of the larger “It’s Up to Us” campaign, developed through the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency. This campaign was developed to empower the local community to talk openly about mental illness, recognize signs and symptoms of suicide risk, and utilize local resources.

This guide offers an understanding of the “It’s Up to Us” campaign and provides tools to implement the campaign on Facebook. These tools include:

  • A series of self-assessment questions to determine if adapting the “It’s Up to Us” Facebook campaign is a good fit to support an organization’s goals.
  • Tips to implement and evaluate the Facebook campaign.
  • A sample posting schedule that a user can download and customize.

Program Objectives

Users of A Guide to Using Facebook to Promote Suicide Prevention and Mental Illness Stigma Reduction will acquire: 1) Knowledge of how to develop, implement, and manage a Facebook campaign for suicide prevention; and 2) Knowledge of safety issues related to suicide prevention on social media

Implementation Essentials

  • Training in suicide prevention/intervention and safe messaging is highly recommended for the person who will be implementing and monitoring the social media campaign.

2012 NSSP Objectives Addressed: 

Objective 2.1: Develop, implement, and evaluate communication efforts designed to reach defined segments of the population.

Objective 2.3: Increase communication efforts conducted online that promote positive messages and support safe crisis intervention strategies.

Objective 4.3: Develop, implement, monitor, and update guidelines on the safety of online content for new and emerging communication technologies and applications.

Manual for Support Groups for Suicide Attempt Survivors

The Manual for Support Groups for Attempt Survivors, developed by the Suicide Prevention Center at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, serves to guide individuals and organizations in developing and implementing an attempt survivors’ support group in their communities. The support group is an eight-week group that offers a safe, non-judgmental place for people to talk about the feelings that led them to attempt suicide and the impact that their attempt had on their lives. The group provides an opportunity for its participants to connect with peers who share similar experiences and includes an emphasis on tools and skills (e.g., coping skills through safety planning) that can help members stay safe from a future suicide attempt.

Program Objectives

Users of the Manual for Support Groups for Suicide Attempt Survivors will acquire: 1. Knowledge of how to develop, implement, and manage a suicide attempt survivor support group, using a community implementation team model; 2. Knowledge of safety issues related to suicide attempt survivor support groups; and 3. Knowledge of resources and tools for suicide attempt survivors.

Implementation Essentials

  • Before implementing a support group for attempt survivors, facilitators need to have training in assessing suicide risk and dealing with imminent risk. It is expected that support group facilitators have education and experience in mental health and suicide prevention.

2012 NSSP Objectives Addressed: 

Objective 10.1: Develop guidelines for effective comprehensive support programs for individuals bereaved by suicide and promote the full implementation of these guidelines at the state/territorial, tribal, and community levels.

Proposed framework for presenting injury data using ICD-10-CM external cause of injury codes

This report provides background information on ICD-10-CM, a comparison between ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM external cause code sets, an overview of the proposed framework and the guiding principles used to construct it, and a list of major issues and recommended resolutions based on feedback from CDC’s health information specialists and subject matter experts in injury data and surveillance systems.

Mayors’ resource guide on behavioral health issues

This guide helps ensure that mayors and municipal leaders have the information they need to address the behavioral health needs of their community’s children, adults, and families by supporting the prevention and treatment of mental illness and recovery from mental illness.

Culture and community: Suicide prevention resources for Native Americans in California

This document describes culturally relevant resources to help you plan and engage in suicide prevention programs; discusses safe messaging and social marketing; and includes examples of suicide prevention materials from 19 American Indian communities in 11 states. An appendix provides American Indian and Alaska Native sources for materials on topics related to suicide, such as mental health, addiction, and depression. Although the title indicates that this resource is for Californians, it is relevant for all parts of the nation.

HIPAA privacy rule and sharing information related to mental health

This guide addresses some of the more frequently asked questions about when it is appropriate under the Privacy Rule for a health care provider to share the protected health information of a patient who is being treated for a mental health condition.
In addition, it provides relevant reminders about related issues, such as the heightened protections afforded to psychotherapy notes by the Privacy Rule, a parent’s right to access the protected health information of a minor child as the child’s personal representative, the potential applicability of Federal alcohol and drug abuse confidentiality regulations or state laws that may provide more stringent protections for the information than HIPAA, and the intersection of HIPAA and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in a school setting.

Postvention: A Guide for Response to Suicide on College Campuses

Postvention: A Guide for Response to Suicide on College Campuses, created by the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA), provides guidance for colleges and universities for responding to a suicide on campus. The Guide is meant to be both a training tool (to be used in preparing a campus response) and a resource when responding to a current suicide. The Guide provides advice on managing communication, clinical response, coordination among stakeholders, and the process of moving the campus back to normal function.

To create the Guide, literature on suicide postvention in college settings was reviewed and consolidated. Input from leading college mental health and campus suicide prevention experts was gathered as well. The document reflects consensus from all the HEMHA partner organizations and a panel of advisors.

Objectives

Administrators and other campus officials who use the Guide will have:

  1. Greater knowledge of expert recommendations for responding to a suicide in the campus community
  2. Access to tools and resources that will help plan and organize the response to a suicide in the campus community

Implementation Essential: In the aftermath of a suicide, it is important that campus administrators collaborate with practitioners and the greater campus communityto develop a coordinated response to the death.