In your review of school-based suicide prevention programs, you have questions - questions about the need, about the time and resources needed, about efficacy and about sustainability.

This overview provides some much-needed answers.

RESPONSE

If parents were aware of their child's suicidal behavior, most would do their part to prevent it. However, studies have shown that as much as 86% of parents were unaware of their child's suicidal behavior. Even if they were aware, peers often know much more about the details of suicidal ideation and behavior than adults do.

Suicidal thoughts can emerge in other ways in the school environment - journal entries, comments to teachers and counselors, and notes - are just a few examples of communication beyond the parent's purview, but can be addressed by those within the school. How they are addressed depends on the sensitivity of staff and students to these signs and their willingness to do something about it.

What is RESPONSE?

RESPONSE is a comprehensive high school-based program designed to increase awareness, heighten sensitivity to depression and suicidal ideation, change counter prevention attitudes, and offer response procedures to refer a student at risk for suicide.

The program is delivered in a school kit which includes an Implementation Manual with step-by-step instructions for busy administrators; a student Component with for 50-minute lesson plans; and an In-Service Manual with complete instructions on delivering a 2-hour staff training. The Student Component and In-Service Manual come with PowerPoint presentations and compelling suicide prevention videos (DVD's) that encourage help-seeking behavior. A Parent Component is available for purchase separately.

Program Implementation

We recognize schools are busy, and we wish we could package the time for you! We did the next best thing, which was to design a program that provides the maximum amount of protection against suicide in the minimum amount of time.

Key school-based staff will include the principal or vice-principal, a school-based RESPONSE Coordinator, 2 "suicide contacts," responsible for handling referrals, and health teacher(s). These staff members comprise the suicide prevention team, and will work together to implement the program.

One of the key differences between RESPONSE and other suicide

RESPONSE

prevention programs is that it was developed on the heels of implementing another suicide prevention program. We learned that the biggest weakness of many of the programs on the market is that there isn't necessarily a school staff member prepared to intervene when there is a referral. In fact, many counselors do not get specific suicide intervention training. To mitigate this glaring deficiency, we help establish the roles of "suicide contacts" who attend an ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) workshop. If you do not have the luxury of having a counselor, it's OK. ASIST was designed for all caregivers and the trainings are available throughout the United States.

The first year will be the highest time investment and will require an average of 15 administration hours, 30 "suicide contact" (counselor or related role) hours, 15 health teacher hours, and 20 RESPONSE Coordinator hours for the key staff. This time is a great investment, however, as the school will be able to integrate suicide prevention, intervention and postvention guidelines, train 2 "suicide contacts" in suicide intervention, establish suicide prevention protocols for students at risk, and prepare for the delivery of student and in-service components. Subsequent years will take an average of 15-hours total.

Program Development, Review and Evaluation

Developed in collaboration with schools, RESPONSE is based on current research on effective school-based suicide prevention programs [Kalafat 2003, Lazear & Ketal 2003, Miller & DuPaul 1996, Poland & Lieberman 2002].

The program is also a recognized Best Practice listed with the SPRC/AFSP Best Practices Registry for Suicide Prevention (BPR). The content has been reviewed by a panel of suicide prevention experts for accuracy, safety, likelihood of meeting goals and objectives, and adherence to prevention program guidelines.

In an evaluation of RESPONSE conducted by the Regional Research Institute at Portland State University, knowledge of suicide prevention was tested with five items before and after the training. A statistically significant increase in knowledge was observed, with a Glass' Δ = .78, a large effect. This means that the average trainee at post-test had a higher knowledge score than 77% of the trainees at pre-test.

Preparation and readiness to intervene with an at-risk youth were measured with six Likert scaled items at pre and post-test. For example, participants were asked to rate how prepared they feel: to ask appropriate questions about suicide; identify suicide risk indicators; and, persuade a youth to seek help. A statistically significant increase in preparation and readiness was found at post-test, with a very large effect size (Glass' Δ = 1.33). This size difference means that the average post-test trainee had higher preparation/readiness than 89% of the trainees at pre-test.

Attitudes about suicide were measured with three Likert scaled items that tapped comfort with discussions of suicide, knowledge of key staff members to help with an at-risk youth, and awareness of the warning signs fo suicide. There were statistically significant increases in these key suicide prevention and intervention variables, with a very large effect (Glass' Δ = 1.27). The average post-training score was higher than 88% of the pre-training scores.

To summarize, those who were trained in RESPONSE showed large changes from pre-training to post-training in the three knowledge and attitude variables.

To download the complete Overview, just click on the RESPONSE Overview on the button on the left navigational bar and then on the pdf link.

For more information, please call Jill Hollingsworth at 541.607.7322.

Overview.pdf (634.2KB)   RESPONSE is a comprehensive high school-based program that increases awareness about suicide among high school staff, students and parents. All of the program components are designed to heighten sensitivity to depression and suicidal ideation, as well as offer response procedures to refer a student at risk for suicide.

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