Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

• Often students receive the news via social media before schools have the opportunity to tell students of the suicide in a classroom or a smaller group. • Schools will have more control over the message if they consider using social media to send out a factual message about the suicide. Such a message will stop rumors and promote prevention resources and the importance of adult support (this is an expansion of traditional postvention in schools). • Online or offline, everyone needs to know what to do to prevent suicides. 14. D ebrief the postvention response with school crisis team members and identify whether additional actions are needed. 15. T he suicide of a student over the summer break is especially challenging for schools, but school staff should reach out mmediately and follow postvention best practices. • K ey personnel, such as school counselors, should do their best to monitor and support students over school vacation with phone calls and even by opening the school, as they strive for continuing mental health care in the school and the community. 16. C onsider what to do on the anniversary of a suicide. • There is often an anniversary effect to suicide involving the birthday that the suicide victim would have had, the anniversary of their death, or at graduation time. School personnel are encouraged to be alert for these milestone dates, well before the anniversary date of the loss, and to reach out to students that have been identified as having the most difficulty in the aftermath of the suicide. 17. S chools need to be familiar with suicide survivor groups and locate the nearest one in their area, as participation in group sessions with others who lost their loved ones to suicide is very beneficial. Florida S.T.E.P.S.