Addressing Youth Suicide
The School Suicide Prevention and Wellness (SSPW) Program serves as a supporting partner to your local school community, where we ultimately want to harness connection and commitment to bring together suicide prevention champions and the community.
There are 197 school districts in Oregon and over 1,200 unique public schools, not including private or alternative programs. Every school district is required to have a suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention plan and associated protocols in place. Schools should continuously be thinking about ways to:
- Reduce risk factors, including for youth at higher risk, both currently and historically.
- Increase protective factors.
- Develop comprehensive systems and communications both internally and with community partners.
We are here to support school suicide prevention programming in the following ways:
- Collaborate with your ESD’s School Safety and Prevention Specialist to closely review your district’s policy, providing feedback on what is essential, best practice, and fitting to your school’s culture and structure.
- Address your school community’s diverse populations, and advise on how your suicide prevention plan can be inclusive and responsive to all youth.
- Support planning a district or Education Service District (ESD) workshop day to review and update your current protocol and prevention plan.
- Support locating suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention trainings, tools, and guidance.
- Support coordinating partnerships between local suicide prevention coalitions, schools, ESDs, local public and mental health agencies, and youth-serving organizations to assess needs and determine impactful next steps to cohesive prevention strategies.
- Share ideas to integrate youth engagement and youth voice into your school community.
- Offer methods to address communication between ESD, districts, schools (private and public), and families.
Other components of our program include:
- Quarterly learning collaboratives for school leaders.
- Quarterly newsletter with suicide prevention resources for your school or district.
- A Suicide Prevention Resource Library with many tools to support your efforts.
Contact our Statewide School Suicide Prevention Manager Shay Clarke at SSPW@linesforlife.org for this support and other requests.
Resources:
- Check out our Suicide Prevention, Intervention, Postvention: Step by Step Guide
- Learn about Recommended Suicide Prevention Training for Schools
- Locate your ESD’s Student and Safety & Prevention Specialist: ODE Student Safety & Prevention
- Stay up to date on school suicide prevention opportunities and news by subscribing to our listserv to receive a quarterly newsletter to stay up to date on new opportunities and resources: Email SSPW@linesforlife.org to join. View the Fall 2023 newsletter here.
- Learn about the YouthLine Mini Grant Program.
- Get involved with the Oregon Alliance to Prevent Suicide Schools Committee
To help you achieve your suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention goals in your K-12 schools, we want to complement existing community resources with outside support to make your plans impactful and sustainable. We want to equip schools with the right people, tools, and learning opportunities that fit your unique needs.
This year’s mini grant cycle is currently accepting applications from Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Klamath, and Lake counties! Check our more information here.
Please email sspw@linesforlife.org with any questions. Thank you for your interest in a Suicide Prevention Mini-grant from YouthLine at Lines for Life!