4 Suicide Prevention Program

Suicide Prevention Program
-Dr P K Sukumaran.
We have launched a suicide prevention program in collaboration with the Psych. Society Trichur. We have to find out risky persons in the community and offer help. Then only our services will be meaningful. That will be the noblest of noble services! Let us site an example in the community…..

Given the continued high rates of suicide among adolescents and young adults (15-24 years of age), it is more urgent than ever that we apply our limited resources for prevention in the most effective manner possible. To that end, this resource guide to describe the rationale and evidence for the effectiveness of various youth suicide prevention strategies and to identify model programs that incorporate these different strategies. The guide is for use by persons who are interested in developing or augmenting suicide prevention programs in their own communities. Because the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders is so widely accepted as a cornerstone of suicide prevention, it is excluded from this guide programs that provide mental health services in traditional health service delivery settings. But did include, however, programs that were designed to increase referral to existing mental health services.
This resource was guided through networking. Initially, 40 experts in youth suicide prevention around the country were asked to identify exemplary youth suicide prevention programs. Representatives from these programs were then contacted and asked to describe their activities and to identify other programs that they considered exemplary. The resulting list of programs is not meant to represent all exemplary youth suicide prevention programs, but it does characterize the diversity of existing programs and can serve as a resource guide for those interested in learning about the types of prevention activities in the field.
For this guide, delineated eight different suicide prevention strategies, most of which were incorporated in some combination into the programs we reviewed. These were:
School Gatekeeper Training. This type of program is directed at school staff (teachers, counselors, coaches, etc.) to help them identify students at risk of suicide and refer such students for help. These programs also teach staff how to respond in cases of a tragic death or other crisis in the school.
Community Gatekeeper Training. This type of gatekeeper program provides training to community members such as clergy, police, merchants, and recreation staff. This training is designed to help these people identify youths at risk of suicide and refer them for help.
General Suicide Education. These school-based programs provide students with facts about suicide, alert them to suicide warning signs, and provide them with information about how to seek help for themselves or for others. These programs often incorporate a variety of self-esteem or social competency development activities.
Screening Programs. Screening involves administration of an instrument to identify high-risk youth in order to provide more thorough assessment and treatment for a smaller, targeted population.
Peer Support Programs. These programs, which can be conducted in either school or non-school settings, are designed to foster peer relationships, competency development, and social skills as a method to prevent suicide among high-risk youth.
Crisis Centers and Hotlines. These programs primarily provide emergency counseling for suicidal people. Hotlines are usually staffed by trained volunteers. Some programs offer a "drop-in" crisis center and referral to traditional mental health services.
Means Restriction. This prevention strategy consists of activities designed to restrict access to firearms, drugs, and other common means of committing suicide.
Intervention after a Suicide. Strategies have been developed to cope with the crisis sometimes caused by one or more youth suicides in a community. They are designed in part to help prevent or contain suicide clusters and to help youth effectively cope with feelings of loss that come with the sudden death or suicide of a peer. Preventing further suicides is but one of several goals of intervention made with friends and relatives of a suicide victim- so-called "postvention" efforts.