Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

the question of helping adolescents get the required minimum of 8–10 hours of sleep per night. Hopefully, parents will take charge of technology so that it will not keep their child up late at night and encourage their children to go to bed earlier. It is hoped that more secondary schools will recognize that high school students are simply not ready to be in school as early as 7:00 a.m. or even 7:30 a.m. 39. As an administrator, I struggle with what really is the role of the schools in suicide prevention as I care deeply about my students, but I also want to be realistic? T he role of the schools is to detect suicidal behavior and to make an initial assessment, which primarily is focused on how immediate the need is for complete adult supervision and a referral for community services. The treatment of a suicidal student is beyond what we can expect of a school counselor, social worker, or a school psychologist. Your administrative duties include implementing any mandated legislation for suicide prevention in your state. If there is no mandated legislation, you are strongly encouraged to do the following: a) provide an annual one hour in-service for all staff members who interact with students, including custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers on the warning signs of suicide and the school referral process; b) ensure that key personnel, such as counselors, social workers, and psychologists are competent in suicide assessment and that procedures have been developed for parent notification and referral of suicidal students to competent practitioners in the community; and c) make every effort to share information between school personnel and mental health professionals in the community. Additionally, it is recommended that a reentry meeting be held at school immediately if a suicidal student is returning from hospitalization and that follow-up services at school are planned. 40. Do you think it’s appropriate for any segments of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why to be shown in school classrooms? N o, and I was very dismayed to learn of at least a few situations where teachers thought the program was compelling and preventative and shared segments in classrooms. I believe that all information and especially videos provided to students that have suicidal content should be carefully vetted and approved by personnel such as the director of instruction for the school. Early in my career, I had one experience where I received a call from the superintendent’s office notifying me about a student suicide the day before. I was told that the suicide victim had watched a made- for-television program about suicide in her classroom and had gone home from school and died by suicide. The superintendent asked that I be the one who would show the program to her parents who were demanding to know the content of the program. I remember asking, “Why me?” I had not even seen the program. The superintendent thought that I would be the ideal person to view the program with the family, but I insisted on the director of instruction being present as well. The student who died had only seen the first half of the television program, which was not very hopeful as it focused on a death by suicide. The second half of the program that the student never viewed was a lot more hopeful as an adolescent was detected as being suicidal and adults were involved, so a tragedy was averted. The parents did not sue the school district and probably that was the result of our willingness to sit down with them and ensure them that we would be taking steps to make sure that teachers did not just tape programs and bring them in to show students on the topic of suicide. I am sure that there were many other factors that were involved in the suicide of that student, but I stand by the statement that all programs that provide content to students about suicide should be carefully planned and utilize best practice programs. 161