Goal: Increase integration of best practices for suicide prevention in the places we live, work, study, and worship.
Effective suicide prevention should be a combination of evidence-based methods, community engagement, and culturally responsive approaches tailored to specific populations.
Objective: Promote suicide prevention in the places we live, work, study, and worship through training, resource sharing, and technical assistance.
Action Steps for Employers:
- Provide training opportunities for mental health, suicide prevention, workplace violence prevention, crisis intervention, and leadership development.
- Create a policy for supporting employees after a loss by suicide and unexpected death.
Occupations with the highest suicide rates are construction and extraction; farming, fishing, and forestry; personal care; installation, maintenance and repair; and arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (CDC, 2023).
Action Steps for Faith Communities:
- Provide education, resources, and awareness of mental health promotion and suicide prevention.
- Provide training for suicide prevention to leadership at faith-based organizations.
- Provide training on suicide bereavement for faith-based organizations.
Action Steps for Schools:
1. Develop and implement a comprehensive prevention, intervention, and postvention system, including needs assessment, resource mapping, screening, and continuum of support.
- This should be done in collaboration with staff, students, parents, providers, and the community.
2. Provide training, guidance, and protocols to build capacity among all staff and administration to respond to students with suicidal ideation and to implement a comprehensive suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention system, in both K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.
3. Implement the use of trauma-sensitive protocol for supporting youth and parents in the return to school after a suicide attempt or mental health crisis.
4. Support student suicide prevention educational programming, including classroom instruction and peer-to-peer programs to increase
5. Create specific plans for building a positive school climate, sense of belonging, bullying prevention, and trusting relationships between staff and students.
The CDC defines bullying as any unwanted aggressive behavior(s) by another youth or group of youths, who are not siblings or current dating partners. It involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated. Bullying prevention is a school-wide process that requires explicit instruction of social-emotional concepts; robust interpersonal skills development, including conflict resolution; confidential reporting; and a system for positive behavioral reinforcement.(CDC, 2024