Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

• Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) teaches a five-step action plan to offer initial help to young people showing signs of a mental illness or in a crisis and connect them with the appropriate professional, peer, social, or self-help care. YMHFA is an eight-hour interactive training for youth-serving adults without a mental health background. For more information, visit mentalhealthfirstaid.org /population-focused-modules/youth. • Safe TALK is a half-day alertness training that prepares anyone over the age of 15, regardless of prior experience or training, to become a suicide-alert helper. For more information, visit livingworks.net/safetalk. • Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) is a two-day interactive workshop in suicide first aid. ASIST teaches participants to recognize when someone may have thoughts of suicide and work with them to create a plan that will support their immediate safety. For more information, visit livingworks.net/asist. • Kognito At-Risk is a series of online interactive professional development modules designed for use by individuals, schools, districts, and statewide agencies. It includes tools and templates to ensure that the program is easy to disseminate and measure results at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Scott Poland and Richard Lieberman recently helped Kognito develop a module on school resiliency after tragedy. For more information, visit kognito.com/products/pk12. • After a Suicide: A Toolkit for Schools , Second Edition , by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (2018), is an online resource that provides basic information and practical tools for schools to use in developing and implementing a comprehensive response to the suicide death of a student. It includes sections on crisis-response teams and activities, helping students cope, addressing issues related to memorials, social media, contagion, working with the media and the community. Scott Poland was a key contributor to the toolkit. For more information, visit sprc.org /resources-programs/after-suicide-toolkit-schools. • Finding Programs and Practices , by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), is a website that provides information on SPRC’s Resources and Programs website and other program registries and lists, as well as suggestions for selecting programs. For more information, visit sprc.org/resources-programs/role-high -schoolteachers-preventing-suicide-sprc -customized-informationpage . • Florida Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (YRBSS) is a survey from the CDC that is administered—and has the results published— every two years. The 2019 data are the latest results published on the website. It asks a variety of questions to high-school youth related to suicide, such as considering suicide, making a suicide plan, and making a suicide attempt. It also asks questions surrounding risk behaviors including bullying. Florida educators are encouraged to have their county participate, as it is a very valuable snapshot of at-risk behavior. For more information, visit floridahealth.gov /statistics-and-data/survey-data/florida-youth -survey/youth-risk-behavior-survey/index.html . • Florida Middle School Health Behavior Survey is similar to the YRBSS, as it asks similar questions to Florida middle schoolers and is also administered and results published every two years. For more information, visit floridahealth. gov/statistics-and-data/survey-data/florida -youth-survey/middle-school-health-behavior -survey/index.html. • The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) list of resources is a list of approved suicide prevention materials (programs and screening tools) recommended by the FDOE. For more information, visit sss.usf.edu/resources/topic /suicide/index.html . Florida S.T.E.P.S.