A safety plan is a written list of those activities that allow us to do three things: Recognize when a crisis is occurring Recognize who our supports are Make immediate next-steps for planning Safety plans are not checklists, and they should not be used in place of having a real conversation. They help provide a sense…
Risk Factors Predicting Youth Suicide Attempts
Youth suicide represents a significant public health issue and one particularly important given that young people often have fewer tools to deal with their suicidal thoughts. Demographics Suicide is the 4th leading cause of death for youth in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2011). There are between 50 and 200 suicide attempts per suicide death in adolescents (Schwartz, 2003)….
Review of Suicide Risk Assessment Applications
A short post today; while considering embarking on a side project to develop an iOS or Android application it occurred to me that suicide prevention and crisis intervention are areas where mobile applications could certainly come in handy (as well as case management.) I downloaded an Android emulator and several free apps to prevent suicide:…
Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY)
Yesterday I had the opportunity to complete training on effective use of the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk in Youth (SAVRY) tool. This tool, designed for children 12-18 (and used up until 21) has shown moderate validity in predicting adolescent violence. I just finished reading Youth Violence: Theory, Prevention and Intervention, and the SAVRY was one…
Developing a Risk Management Program for Your Helpline
Importance of Helpline Risk Management Risk management is the process of assessing and taking steps to mitigate areas where things that might go wrong in your organization. While we all hope that nothing would ever go wrong, it’s important that we are not caught blindsided. Some of these issues are within our control (e.g. helpline…