Connecting to Life: Engaging Youth in Suicide Intervention

Format

Individual Presentation

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

RISE Youth & Family Services

First Presenter’s Email Address

saranewman@riseyafs.com

First Presenter's Brief Biography

Sara Newman, LCSW, is a therapist and agency owner with over 20 years of experience serving youth, adults, families and community organizations. Through her work she has founded three agencies and serves the community in a variety of ways including crisis stabilization, mentoring, parent advocacy, coaching and psychotherapy. Sara is consistently called upon to consult, train, create policy and curriculum, supervise and facilitate both direct care practitioners as well as leaders of other organizations locally and nationally.

Submitter

I am submitting this proposal as one of the presenter(s)

Location

Verelst

Strand #1

Heart: Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #2

Health: Mental & Physical Health

Relevance

The focus of this proposal is on the ‘heart’ strand and the mental and physical health strand of the Youth Advocacy and Resiliency conference. Suicide is a public health crisis. This workshop teaches providers how to educate and empower youth to appropriately intervene when suicide is being talked about by their peers. The exercises and skills taught can be utilized by youth and family members when presented with someone who is thinking about or demonstrating suicide behaviors. This workshop also illustrates through practice and research how intervening in immediate ways through conversation, words and informal assessment can result in saved lives.

Brief Program Description

Much of the community education surrounding suicidality is focused on prevention and postvention. Education surrounding intervention, however, is often saved for the professionals when the reality is that the people who will often first identify someone with thoughts of suicide include peers, family members or other informal support people in a person’s life. Discussions surrounding suicidality are shrouded in stigma and fear and are frequently avoided. Normalizing conversations about mental health and suicidality and practicing ways to confidently engage in intervention-focused conversations will save lives. These conversations and skills can be modeled and taught in developmentally appropriate ways to youth and their parents.

Summary

The topic of suicide is often a difficult one for a variety of reasons. Values, beliefs, lived experiences and legal issues all play a role in how people view suicide, how they grieve suicide and how they talk about suicide. Because of this, the prevention, assessment, intervention and postvention efforts often fall on mental health professionals. The reality is that individuals with thoughts of suicide seek out peers, family, coaches and other informal supports when they are hurting or having thoughts of suicide. Youth specifically should be empowered to recognize someone who is presenting with thoughts of suicide and to know how to have a meaningful interaction that could save a life. There are identifiers that youth can learn to recognize, there are questions that can be asked and there are safety planning steps that can be utilized. These can be presented and practiced in a way that is developmentally appropriate. This is not to say that the responsibility should fall on a child to have these difficult conversations, however, we know that young people are often put in a position to assist in this way. Feeling like one did not say or do the right thing when presented with someone having thoughts of suicide can be devastating and the impact of feeling like a completed suicide could have been prevented can last a lifetime.

Evidence

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, each year 2 million adolescents attempt suicide and almost 700,000 receive medical attention for their attempt Each year approximately 4600 youth between the ages of 10-19 complete suicide and in 2021, 9% of high school students reported attempting suicide during the previous 12 months. While there are widespread community awareness efforts out there and many models for suicide prevention that are utilized in clinics, schools, and other systems, these models often focus on warning signs, data and debunking myths. Additionally, they often involve safety contracts which are unhelpful at best and contraindicated at worst (Rozek et al, 2023). Traditional approaches are often geared for the mental health professional when the reality is, peers and other informal supports are of then the ones to first become aware of someone having thoughts of suicide. Existing programs are excellent from a prevention standpoint, however, they are not geared for meaningful and in-the-moment intervention beyond developing a safety contract or plan. Additionally, they do not teach skills in a way that is designed for informal supports, much less designed or taught in a way geared for youth.

"Suicide Intervention Practices: What is being used by mental health clinicians and mental health allies" (Rozek et al, 2023)

Learning Objective 1

Participants will learn about prevalence and impact of suicidality among youth as well as receive a brief overview and critique of current suicide prevention models

Learning Objective 2

Participants will come to recognize the importance of educating informal supports, specifically youth, in suicide intervention.

Learning Objective 3

Participants will learn and practice developmentally appropriate suicide intervention skills to better teach them to youth and families.

Keyword Descriptors

suicide, youth, family, intervention

Presentation Year

2025

Start Date

3-4-2025 1:00 PM

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Mar 4th, 1:00 PM

Connecting to Life: Engaging Youth in Suicide Intervention

Verelst

Much of the community education surrounding suicidality is focused on prevention and postvention. Education surrounding intervention, however, is often saved for the professionals when the reality is that the people who will often first identify someone with thoughts of suicide include peers, family members or other informal support people in a person’s life. Discussions surrounding suicidality are shrouded in stigma and fear and are frequently avoided. Normalizing conversations about mental health and suicidality and practicing ways to confidently engage in intervention-focused conversations will save lives. These conversations and skills can be modeled and taught in developmentally appropriate ways to youth and their parents.