Florida School Toolkit for K-12 Educators to Prevent Suicide

Considerations for Staff Member Suicide Prevention Training School staff members at every grade level need prevention and intervention training. With a growing concern for suicide of elementary age students, we must take all suicidal statements and behavior seriously regardless of the student’s age. Elementary students making statements about suicide are often expressing frustration and anger. We hope that we can help elementary students to be able to more clearly articulate what it is that is bothering them at the moment. If they’ve made statements about death, dying, and suicide, however, then procedures for suicide prevention must be followed. It is also very important, throughout the entire elementary school curriculum, to reinforce the concept of always getting help from a trusted adult when a student—or a classmate—is talking or thinking about dangerous behavior, including threats of violence toward others or suicide. School personnel must follow through with the district plans and protocols even if the student is at the elementary level. Most importantly, notify the parents of the student suspected of being suicidal. Ideally, every Florida school annually asks all students to identify the go-to adults in their lives, at home and at school, and emphasizes the need for students to go to that adult if someone is threatening suicide or homicide. Components of Staff Member Suicide Prevention Training The recommended training focuses on understanding why suicide is preventable and identifying students who are at risk of suicide and how to utilize best practices for parent notification, community referral, reentry, and postvention. Training should be designed to achieve several specific goals related to suicide prevention. • C onvey current statistics, beliefs, and attitudes about suicide in youth, and - dispel myths - review protective factors for youth, including having programing that creates a suicide awareness culture - stress never keeping a secret about a student’s suicidal behavior, including building a climate with connections between students and trusted adults • Educate school staff members about suicide myths in order to recognize and respond to warning signs of suicide risk (Tools 9–11). • Promote the importance of intervention with at-risk youth and connect them with the needed help. For this, it is important to - know the school referral procedures (Tool 8) - know who the suicide prevention expert for the district or school is - know procedures to monitor students at risk of suicide • Provide information about suicide prevention resources in your school and community. • Convey that suicide is almost always preventable and, if a student died by suicide, it was probably the result of untreated or undertreated mental illness. • Document staff member understanding of suicide prevention and intervention with a pre- and post-training survey (Tool 5). Florida S.T.E.P.S.