1. MAKING EDUCATORS PARTNERS IN YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION
Training of trainers
Hello and welcome to this MEP training of trainers webinar. My name is Pat Breux and I will be your trainer this morning along with our onsite host, Katie. While it would have been my preference to be in the room with you in person as we kick off this GLS training initiative, It is great that we have the technology to allow us to get moving. If you participate, ask questions and keep the conversation going on your end, that will be very helpful to me.

2. Your Training materials
So I want to explain your trainer manual to you, and I also want Katie to take a few minutes to navigate through your trainer support materials on Basecamp a bit.

3. About the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide…
Non-profit organization, started in by Scott Fritz and Don Quigley
Mission is to provide public awareness information about youth suicide to educators, parents, students & mental health professionals
Believe in shared responsibility for youth suicide prevention, with clarify of roles
All training materials on SPRC “Best Practices Registry”
Program initiatives in 41 states
I want to tell you a little about me and a little about us. The SPTS was started by 2 Dad’s who were friends, NJ businessmen, who lost children to suicide about a month apart back in They really felt that they should have known more about suicide and that people at school should have known more. They advocated for mandatory teacher training and NJ became the first state in the union to mandate educator training in 2006, then they developed MEP Online to make sure that teachers had access to the training they needed. They later added Lifelines training, we now also provide “creating suicide safety in schools workshop and ASIST and safetalk workshops. SPTS has become recognized as a national leader in youth suicide prevention work.

4. What this Training Will do:
Reinforce why school-based suicide prevention is important
Review the Making Educators Partners in Youth Suicide Prevention
Outline a 30 minute training agenda
Address specific issues related to suicide prevention training
Address your questions
Provide additional resources
We will be reviewing the content of the in person mep training
We’ll talk about how to customize it for 30 minute, 45, 60, 90 and two hour trainings.
We’ll address issues related to provide suicide prevention training in school
Hopefully we’ll answer your questions
And we’ll provide some resources

5. By the end of this training
You should feel better prepared to present a version
of the Making Educators Partners training.

6. How comfortable are you providing training about youth suicide?
1 - Very Uncomfortable Very Comfortable - 10
I’d like you to take a minute to think about just how comfortable you are providing training about youth suicide?

7. The Place to Start… Considering your own feelings first.
What have your past experiences with the subject taught you? How do they make you feel?

8. Personal Assessment Questions
What I understand about suicide is…
What I don’t understand about suicide is…
What would help me understand suicide better is…
You might consider these questions. What I understand about suicide is…
What I don’t understand about suicide is…
What would help me understand suicide better is…

9. Resources to facilitate understanding
Suicide Prevention Resource Center BOOKS: TEEN SUICIDE RISK King, Foster, & Rogalski (2013) Guilford Press WHY PEOPLE DIE BY SUICIDE Thomas Joiner (2005) Harvard University Press ADOLESCENT SUICIDE ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION Berman, Jobes & Silverman (2007) American Psychological Association WHEN NOTHING MATTERS ANYMORE Bev Cobain (2007) Free Spirit Press
The SPRC website, if you have never visited it has an extensive library. A ton of archived webinars, research articles and policy papers.
Dr. Cynthia King just last year published a book on Teen suicide risk assessment that is very readable.
If you are not familiar with Tom Joiners work, his interpersonal theory of suicide is a very important work that many researchers are building on. A very practical theory.
Berman, Jobes and Silverman’s book is an important one.
And Bev Cobain, Kirt Kobain’s mother, her book is one of my colleague Maureen’s favorites.

10. Why talk about suicide? .
So one of the first questions that you need to answer for your training participants is “why talk about suicide?” And particularly, why should we talk about suicide in school?

11. Importance of teaching suicide- related content
41,149 people died by suicide
2,134 children and teens died by suicide
(CDC, WISQARS, 2015)
In 2014
17% HS students thought seriously about suicide
13% made a plan, 8% attempted
(CDC, YRBSS, 2015)
In 2013
41,149 people died by suicide
2,134 children and teens died by suicide
(CDC, WISQARS, 2015)
In 2014
17% HS students thought seriously about suicide
13% made a plan, 8% attempted
(CDC, YRBSS, 2015)

12. Georgia Suicide Statistics
In 2013
1,212 Georgians died by suicide
73 youth died by suicide (10-19 years old)
(CDC, WISQARS, 2015)
Suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death for 10 to 24 year olds.

13. About the Making Educators partners Course…
Developed in response to legislation passed in NJ in 2006
Initial online version launched in 2008
Middle school module added 2011
Newly revised March 2015
Number of people who have taken online version:> 70,000
Number of person trained with in-person version: 5,750
So let’s talk about MEP and why it was chosen to help schools in Arkansas when it comes to talking about suicide. Developed in response to legislation passed in NJ in 2006
Initial online version launched in 2008
Middle school module added 2011
Newly revised March 2015
Number of people who have taken online version:> 70,000
Number of person trained with in-person version: 2,750

14. About the Making Educators partners Course…
What we know from course evaluation data:
22% of participants had a personal loss
27-33% of participants had loss in a professional circumstance
48-50% of educators had interacted with a suicidal student
44% had referred a student for help
98% of participants would refer course to a colleague
What we know from course evaluation data:
22% of participants had a personal loss
27-33% of participants had loss in a professional circumstance
48-50% of educators had interacted with a suicidal student
44% had referred a student for help
98% of participants would refer course to a colleague

15. Course foundational assumptions
The school as a ‘Competent Community’:
“In our school we care about each other’s needs and we
know where and how to get help if a community member is in need”
The most effective prevention programs impact the culture of the school
The mission of the school is to provide a safe environment for learning, not become a counseling center
Suicide prevention activities can fit into the context of already established programs to enhance resiliency
We always say the suicide prevention happens in school in the context of a competent school community. What that means is that everyone in the school community has a role to play in prevention. We care about each other, we all know how to help – according to our role and we are consistently inclined to get help for ourselves or someone else if they are in need.
Teacher training is just one component.
SP training in school should address the limited but critical role of the school in prevention – to provide a safe learning environment.
It’s also important to address the developmental context of children.
Suicide prevention should be integrated, “baked in” to the way a school does business. And not a stand alone program.
Also important to provide info in a developmental context- hear about cultural competence- don’t often consider youth as a culture- need to help teachers respond to them about suicide in developmentally appropriate way

16. COURSE OBJECTIVES By the end of the course, participants will have:
Greater awareness of the problem of youth suicide
Better understanding of the role of educators in prevention
Increased strategies for dealing with potentially at-risk students
Course objectives are simple:
Provide an awareness of the problem
Understand the critical, but limited role of educators in recognizing students in distress, providing an initial response and referring to appropriate resources.

17. Differences: online vs. in-person Course
FEATURE
INPERSON
MANDATORY
PRE/POST TEST
OPTIONAL
HOURS
LENGTH 30
minutes
EMBEDDED
VIDEO CLIPS
DISCRETIONARY
YES
ABILITY TO SELF-PACE NO NO
LOCAL /STATE DATA
YES NO
DISCUSSION OF LOCAL RESOURCES
YES NO
CAN ADMINISTER SCHOOL READINESS SURVEY
YES

18. Integration of adult learning theory
Validates skill and knowledge of the audience
Contextualizes suicide prevention into the mission of the school
Includes personal accounts to engage audience emotionally with content
School-based vignettes translate informational content into its practical application
Important content is reiterated as example of reinforcement learning
MEP works to integrate adult learning theory. It is respectful of the skills, experiences and knowledge of the audience and keeps the discussion relevant to the context of the school. So there is very little use of mental health jargon.
There are a videos with personal accounts to help personalize and engage emotionally. And the vignettes demonstrate practical application of the content.
Important content is reiterated.

19. Integration of training principles
Provides a variety of training experiences - data, didactic, personal experiences, video, acronym – to address different learning styles of participants
Slide content is limited
Starts and ends on time
The training also attempts to use a variety of experiences, lecture, video, data, interactive questions to accommodate different learnings styles.
We try to keep the slides uncluttered and the content limited on each slide.
We encourage you to start and end on time.

20. Getting it together. Content organization
So let’s talk a little about the content and how it is organized.

21. KEY Course CONTENT Addresses “critical but limited role of the school”
Avoids discussion of mental illness
Minimizes ‘clinical’ jargon
Consistent with Lifelines:
Learn signs of suicide
Identify students who may need help
Refer them to designated resources
Again this training attempts to address the suicide prevention needs of school personnel. It doesn’t presume that faculty should be diagnosing mental health concerns. Just recognizing and addressing emotional distress that is interfering with students ability to learn and be safe.
The language of the course is also very consistent with Lifelines training and Creating Suicide Safety in School workshop that we will be offering.

22. NOTE pages for Slide deck. .
Copy of slide with number at top of page
Core message of slide at top right
Trainer notes
What to SAY
What to DO
Room for notes in margin
Beginning on page 10 in your manual, you have your slide deck pages for the training. There is enough content there to easily cover 2 hours. Each page has a picture of the slide. Core message and then a Things to say and things to do. There is room on most pages to make notes for yourself. I would suggest that you put your manual into a 3 ring binder. If you are customizing for a shorter presentation, you can either take out pages, or you can put a sticky note over them.
You can also use your “slide show” tab and select slides that you will not be using and click on the “hide slide” icon to keep them from showing. This saves you from creating multiple versions.
I would also like to say that because of all of the imbedded video, the slide show is a very big file. You will want to down load it and it’s accompanying videos files from Basecamp to a folder on the desktop of the computer you will be using for the presentation. Give yourself plenty of time for this download.

23. Reviewing content Organization
Slide Numbers
Time Allocation
Introductory Material
1-5
3 minutes
Competent Community 6
1 minute
Reviewing teacher’s role
7 - 8
2 minutes
Answering questions
9 - 11
Defining the problem
Reviewing risk factors and warning signs
10 minutes

24. Reviewing content Organization
Slide Numbers
Time Allocation
3 steps for helping a student at risk 21
2 minutes
Understanding protective factors
3 minutes
Homework
Ending – Stacy video clip 26
Resources
1 minute

25. Notes to Trainers:
Things to Consider

26. The Special Issues in Suicide Training
The topic intrinsically carries stigma – many in audience may not want to be there!
Survivors of suicide WILL be present in the audience
Participants need permission to ‘zone out’ if needed
Training needs to be paced to allow participants to ‘come up for air”
We are providing you with content. But this is a stigmatized and scary topic. And you become the face of it for the people you train. you HUMANIZE SUICIDE- GIVE IT A FACE THAT IS NOT IN CRISIS-NOT SCARY- you are also face of health/mental health practitioners
People may have had bad /not good experiences- not helpful, removed,
You as a person- not nurse, social worker, psychologist, or counselor- are someone audience can connect with on this difficult topic.
Your comfort with the topic, your confidence that suicide can be prevented, your ability to engage, is how we overcome the stigma and empower educators to help.
‘hey- if I needed help I culd go to him/her

27. The Special Issues in Suicide Training
Topical, newsworthy events - suicide, school shootings - need to be referenced
Personal issues ALWAYS surface in questions at training’s conclusion
If a school has had a suicide within last academic year, content will need to be adjusted to include information about being a ‘survivor school’
Please acknowledge topical events. Don’t speculate about them. Just acknowledge them or else they can become like the elephant in the room.
There are people in the room who have lost someone to suicide, some who have someone in their family who they are worried about and others who have had suicidal thoughts or attempts themselves. Always be mindful and respectful of this. Be prepared for personal issues to surface during questions and answers at the end. Offer to stay and be available. Linger. We have additional slides and consider taking out some video clips for survivor schools.

28. Words to carefully consider
“Unsuccessful” attempt
“Committed” suicide
“Victim” of suicide
“Self-mutilation” v. Self-Injury, Self-Harm
“Closure” related to discussions about grief after suicide
Mental “disorder”
Unsuccessful” attempt
“Committed” suicide
“Victim” of suicide
“Self-mutilation” v. Self-Injury, Self-Harm
“Closure” related to discussions about grief after suicide
Mental “disorder”

29. Think about…
It really works well to have a school administrator review policies and procedures. If there isn’t time during this meeting - or they’re not up to date - suggest they get discussed at a subsequent faculty meeting
Although you probably won’t start on time, you sure better end on time!
Know what to do if your audiovisual materials don’t work the way you expect
Be sure to test sound on videos before you start!
Bring resource materials to distribute
Have someone from the school available who can talk about school procedures for notifying parents and for referring kids. If not at this training, at a subsequent faculty meeting.
Be sure to end on time
Know what you are going to do if you ppt or speakers don’t work or if your videos won’t play.
Bring business cards and the 1800 number.

30. Introductory Exercise
Tricks of the trade
Introductory Exercise
We talked about the need for an introductory exercise to give people permission to zone out or use their imagination to “come up for air”. If it’s a small group, you can go around and have people introduce themselves. If it’s a larger group or if time is short, have them tell the person next to them.

31. Tricks of the Trade Coming Up for Air
IN AUDIENCE- WILL BE PEOPLE WHO ARE PERSONALLY AFFECTED- MAY BE THE REASON SOME FOLKS ARE NOT PAYING ATTENTION-
NEED TO LIGHTEN THINGS UP OCCASIONALLY-
IF YOU CAN SHARE STORIES ABOUT KIDS-
SHOWS YOU KNOW POPULATION AS WELL AS HOW CHALLENGING IT IS TO DO THEIR JOBS
DON’T NEED TO BE A STAND UP COMIC= JUST SOMETHING TO LIGHTEN CONTEnt

32. Tricks of the trade Closing Illustration
STORY OF OLYMPIC- SISTER SHIP TO THE TITANIC= SET SAIL IN 1911 KEPT SAILING TIL EARLY 1930’S … MORAL= RESILIENCE

33. Revisiting this question: How comfortable are you providing training about youth suicide?
1- Very Uncomfortable Very Comfortable- 10

34. putting theory into action
TRAINING DEMONSTRATION

35. MAKING EDUCATORS PARTNERS IN SUICIDE PREVENTION
Lifelines: A School-Based Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative
{ADD YOUR NAME & AFFILIATION HERE}

37. Educational Objectives
Review benefits
Correct myths
Present accurate data
Outline roles
Discuss interaction with students
Provide additional resources

38. Why Suicide Prevention is Important
Second leading cause of death overall for teens in the USA.
2,134 children and teens died by suicide in (CDC, WISQARS, 2015)
For every suicide death, there are between attempts 116,211 self-inflicted injuries for teens in 2013.
(CPSC, NEISS, 2015)
18% HS students seriously considered suicide, 13% made a plan, 8% attempted in 2013.
(CDC, YRBSS, 2015)

39. Georgia Suicide Statistics
In 2013
1,212 Georgians died by suicide
73 youth died by suicide (10-19 years old)
(CDC, WISQARS, 2015)
Suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death for 10 to 24 year olds.

40. “Competent School Community”
THE CONTEXT FOR PREVENTION
All members of the school community are concerned about the welfare of each other
They know how to obtain help for those who need it

41. Staff Responsibility
Understand the importance of your critical but limited role in the identification of students at-risk for suicide
Familiarize yourself with school policies and procedures that address this issue
Learn information that facilitates identification of at-risk students
Listen to students, verbally and nonverbally, for warning signs
Identify those students who may be at elevated risk based on that identification
Refer those students to appropriate resources

42. Your Role Simplified Learning signs of risk in students
Identifying at-risk students
Referring to appropriate resources

43. Are School Programs That Address Suicide Safe?
Answering Common
Questions
Are School Programs That Address Suicide Safe?

44. Answering Common
Questions
Can Talking about Suicide Plant the Idea in the Minds of Vulnerable Teens?

45. Is Talking about Suicide Just a Way for Someone to Get Attention?
Answering Common
Questions
Is Talking about Suicide Just a Way for Someone to Get Attention?

46. ATTEMPTED SUICIDE Defining the Problem SUICIDE
is a potentially self-injurious act
Completed with at least some intent
to die as a result of the act
SUICIDE
is an attempt to solve a problem
of intense emotional pain
with impaired problem-solving skills

47. Characteristics of Suicide
1. Alternative to problem perceived as unsolvable by any other means
2. Crisis thinking colors problem solving
3. Person is often ambivalent
4. Suicidal solution has an irrational component
5. Suicide is a form of communication

48. Risk Factors / Warning Signs
Red - Warning Signs
Yellow - Risk Factors
Green - Protective Factors

49. Risk Factors for Youth Suicide
Demographic
Clinical
‘Stressors’
Access to Means
Personality
Factors
Family

50. Risk Factors DEMOGRAPHIC Age Sex Gender Identity Race CLINICAL
Psychiatric diagnosis
Drug / alcohol use
Previous attempt

51. Risk Factors FAMILY History of suicide EXPOSURE
To suicide (personally or in media)
Death of peer under any circumstance
RECENT, SEVERE STRESSORS
Loss
Trouble
Change – transition

52. THE PERFECT STORM

53. Warning Signs F
eelings A
ctions C
hanges T
hreats S
ituations

54. Students at Higher Risk
Threatening suicide
Looking for access to means
Talking or writing about death, dying, suicide
Previous attempt serious enough to require hospitalization

55. 3 Steps to Help RECOGNIZE THE WARNING SIGNS
EXPRESS CONCERN & SEEK CLARIFICATION
Provide support.
REFER STUDENT Provide a warm handoff to appropriate resources.

56. Protective Factors Contact with a caring adult
Sense of connection or participation in school
Positive self-esteem and coping skills
Access to and care for mental / physical / substance disorders

57. Fostering Protective Factors
Teach students it is okay to ask for help
Give students permission to talk about traumatic events like suicide
Help students identify trusted adults
Encourage participation in school & community activities
Acknowledge student efforts
Be a good listener, as often as you can

58. So Here’s Your Homework:
1. Review school policy & procedures
2. Examine personal attitudes and values
3. Remember your role in the competent community
4. Review curriculum for ways in which you can foster protective factors (resiliency)
CORE MESSAGE PROVIDES A REVIEW OF THE WAYS IN WHICH SCHOOLS AND EDUCATORS CAN BECOME PARTNERS IN YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION

59. Remember: Your Role Simplified
Learning signs of risk in students
Identifying at-risk students
Referring to appropriate resources

61. Web Resources
Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide Sponsor of this program, focuses on resources for the competent school community, including Lifelines,
an evidence-based suicide prevention program for schools. Free on-line educator training!
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Free confidential, 24-hour hotline, free materials
Suicide Prevention Resource Center Resources for states, on-line library, best practices registry
American Association of Suicidology Data, resources, links, journal, national conference
The Trevor Project Specific information for LGBTQ youth
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Survivor resources, research, and awareness

62. It’s in the Shelter of Each Other…
...THAT WE LIVE

63. MAKING EDUCATORS PARTNERS IN SUICIDE PREVENTION
Lifelines: A School-Based Youth Suicide Prevention Initiative
CREATED BY
Maureen M. Underwood, LCSW
John Kalafat, Ph.D

64. Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A…
Time for questions
Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A… Q&A…