Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

Section 3 Postvention After a Suicide includes guidelines for providing compassionate, honest, and best practice responses in the event of a death. Postvention includes the responses needed to provide support for the family of the suicide victim, your school staff, your students, and the community at large. Additionally, it provides guidelines for facilitating appropriate media coverage. This section recognizes that postvention is a very challenging time for schools while emphasizing that the primary purpose is to help students and staff with their emotions and to prevent further suicides. Adolescents are the most likely to imitate suicidal behavior, and suicide contagion is a process that can lead to suicide clusters. A suicide cluster is when more suicides occur than could be expected in a short time and in a small geographical area. A two- part article about suicide contagion is in Appendix 2. Carefully planned postvention responses are essential to preventing further suicides. Tools for Schools This section is what makes this document a true toolkit. It provides sample forms that can be easily adapted and personalized with minor revisions to meet each school’s or district’s needs. The various tools outline recommendations for training and crisis-action protocols for responding to suicidal students, notifying parents or guardians, documenting all actions, and recommending supervision and services for the suicidal students. Appendices This section includes additional information as well as answers to suicide questions Scott Poland is commonly asked by parents, guardians, school personnel, and students. Previously, it was estimated that a death by suicide profoundly affected six people, but that estimate has been raised to eighteen people. Our experience is that suicide prevention is often driven by survivors. Many years ago, before becoming a trained psychologist, Scott Poland lost his father to suicide and now realizes he missed the warning signs. It is critical for school personnel to keep up with legislative initiatives and best practices. It is our hope that this toolkit results in improved suicide prevention efforts in the Florida schools, both public and private, and empowers everyone to act to prevent suicide. Florida S.T.E.P.S.