Overview
If you haven’t already done so, build your school’s suicide risk assessment team, including people who bring diverse perspectives and expertise.
How to build your suicide risk assessment team
Your suicide risk assessment team can include:
- Mental health professionals, such as school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers
- Administrators
- School nurses
- School resource officers
School mental health professionals, along with community-based professionals, have primary responsibility for the assessment and crisis intervention with the student.
Other staff can help mental health professionals in a variety of ways, including:
- Gathering information to support a comprehensive assessment
- Helping rule out other concerns (in addition to the potentially suicidal behavior)
- Facilitating notifications to parents/guardians
- Supporting staff and peers impacted by the student’s behavior
- Identifying strategies to address factors that may be contributing to the student’s behavior, such as bias, harassment, or bullying
How to train your suicide risk assessment team
Your school’s suicide risk assessment team should also be trained annually regarding current standards, methods, and resources for effective assessment.
Annual training for your risk assessment team should include the following:
- Discussion about the implementation process for assessment
- Discussion about case studies, factors that may complicate assessments, roles and responsibilities, family engagement, and student reentry
- Practice student interviewing
- Practice completing forms and plans
- Documentation procedures
- Resource mapping of available mental health supports (both inside and outside the school setting)
- Review your school’s crisis plan for postvention response