Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

1. Suicide Prevention Task Force Florida S.T.E.P.S. was built on the considerable momentum in place for suicide prevention in the schools. It provides a comprehensive approach to suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. We strongly encourage schools to form a suicide prevention task force (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2019). Research shows that about 20 percent of school personnel come in contact with at least one suicidal student within a month span and 39 percent within a year span (Tompkins, Witt, and Ajbraibesh, 2009). The task force needs to link with community prevention partners, meet regularly, and to collect data using Tool 32. The task force should represent at a minimum the following key school personnel: administrators, counselors, nurses, psychologists, school resource officers (SRO), and social workers. 2. Suicide Prevention Specialist Each school is also encouraged to identify key personnel to become trained specialists in suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. These individuals need to be very well trained in suicide assessment. This specialist likely would be a school counselor or school psychologist; however, in the smaller districts this role may need to be filled by an administrator or even a lead teacher. This specialist may not only conduct the risk assessment with a student but also would provide the needed supervision for the student, notify parents, and work toward securing mental health services for the student. Although the tasks above for the specialist may sound daunting, the toolkit outlines all the steps. KEY ROLES 13