This Treatment Improvement Protocol provides evidence-based and best practice information for behavioral health practitioners and administrators working with people who have experienced trauma. Using key trauma-informed principles, it addresses trauma-related prevention, screening, assessment, intervention, and treatment issues and strategies. It includes key information to help practitioners and administrators become trauma aware and informed, and implement science-informed intervention strategies across settings and modalities in behavioral health services.
Resource Types: Manual
Training resource guide for suicide prevention in primary care settings
This resource was developed to help guide county efforts to engage primary care in suicide prevention. It includes a one-hour suicide prevention training with slides, notes and handouts; tips, tools and templates to support planning and implementation of the training; and a copy of the SPRC/WICHE Suicide Prevention Toolkit for Rural Primary Care Practices. Together, these resources cover assessment, screening, safety planning and other issues.
Addressing the specific behavioral health needs of men: Quick guide for clinicians based on TIP 56
Equips clinicians with practical guidance to address the needs of men in recovery. Addresses screening and assessment of men, treatment issues for men, working with specific populations of men, and male-appropriate treatment modalities and settings.
Community readiness for community change
This manual provides guidance for assessing a community’s level of readiness and appropriate actions and techniques to move it toward addressing an issue, such as suicide.
A practitioner’s resource guide: Helping families to support their LGBT children
This resource guide offers information and resources to help practitioners throughout health and social service systems implement best practices in engaging and helping families and caregivers to support their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) children. Research has shown that compared to LGBT young adults who reported high levels of family rejection during adolescence were 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide.
Community Planning Guide: Assisting Communities in Building a Stronger EMS System
This guide is a step-by-step plan on how to evaluate the role of EMS in one’s community.
Each of the eight main sections discusses a specific part of the community and guides the community in assessing the EMS service in relation to that segment of the community.
Help a friend in need
Help A Friend In Need is a community guide for Facebook users to help college students and young adults identify potential warning signs that a friend might be in emotional distress and in need of help. The guide provides recommendations about how to recognize content on Facebook that may signal emotional distress, as well as advice on how to talk to a friend who may be struggling and how to connect them to help.
Pathways to Purpose and Hope
Pathways to Purpose and Hope is a guide to creating a sustainable suicide bereavement support program that offers a variety of services on a long-term basis to meet the complicated needs of survivors. The guide is designed so that any lay person can use it to start a new program or enhance an existing one. It provides detailed instructions and tips for developing an agency brochure, database, and website; welcoming new families, facilitating support meetings, and compiling a newsletter; and developing optional services such as lending libraries, memorial quilts, birthday and anniversary notes, retreats and conferences, speakers bureaus, and mentoring programs. It also includes chapters on communications, finances and fundraising, governance and structure, evaluation, and training. Sections of the guide can be implemented as an organization develops, grows, and customizes its services to meet the needs of survivors in their area. Included are sample forms and handouts that can be customized by users.
Pathways to Purpose and Hope is based on a comprehensive program developed by more than 50 survivors over a period of 30 years to provide multiple services to meet the complex needs of survivors after a suicide loss. The guide was written collaboratively by Friends for Survival (a suicide bereavement support program that has been based in Sacramento for over 30 years) and 14 contributors, including survivors and experts in the field of survivor support.
Program Objectives
Readers of Pathways to Purpose and Hope will have increased:
- Knowledge of the steps to establish and/or expand a sustainable survivor support program.
- Understanding of the critical elements and services for a sustainable program.
- Knowledge of training and other resources available to support their efforts.
Implementation Essentials
- Those who implement or conduct suicide bereavement support groups should be familiar with local referral points for those who may require additional services.
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.
Saving Our Lives: Preventing Suicide in Transgender Communities Video and Discussion Guide
Saving Our Lives: Preventing Suicide in Transgender Communities Video and Discussion Guide provides simple but important recommendations for recognizing and intervening with members of the transgender community who may be at risk for suicide. As such, it is appropriate for both caregivers and the general public. The video guide provides background on transgender suicide, definitions of transgender-related terms, and recommendations for addressing those who are transgender. It also lists six discussion questions that can help facilitate discussion of the important topics found in the video. The 10-minute video includes practical examples of how to recognize possible warning signs of suicide, how to ask directly about suicide, and how to help those who may be at risk for suicide.
Saving Our Lives: Preventing Suicide in Transgender Communities Video and Discussion Guide was created by the Massachusetts Transgender Suicide Prevention Working Group, a collaboration of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Fenway Health, Samaritans, Inc., and the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention. The working group was formed in 2008 to address the issue of transgender suicide by working to make communities safer and healthier for transgender people.
Information in the video and discussion guide is based on a literature review and feedback from the transgender community and service providers. The related brochure was adapted from a similar brochure produced by Samaritans, Inc.
Program Objectives
Those who view the video will have greater:
- Knowledge of how individuals at risk for suicide may act.
- Knowledge of how to ask about suicide.
- Knowledge of how to seek help for someone who may be at risk for suicide.
- Knowledge of how to seek support as a helper.
Implementation Essentials
- Those who sponsor viewing and discussion of the video should be aware of local helping resources and let participants know how to contact these resources.
- It would be helpful to have a mental health professional attend presentations of the video.
2012 NSSP Objectives Addressed:
Objective 5.3: Intervene to reduce suicidal thoughts and behaviors in populations with suicide risk.
Objective 7.1: Provide training on suicide prevention to community groups that have a role in the prevention of suicide and related behaviors.
Focus on firearm safety: Resource guide
This resource guide on provides state Maternal and Child Health and Injury and Violence Prevention programs with a summary of what is available in the area of firearm safety and prevention. It contains information on a broad range of evidence-informed interventions, firearms data, state legislation about firearms, and organizations to contact for additional information.