Suicide Prevention for All Arizona Youth
Fostering resilience in youth takes all-around support and well-informed communities—something we support through our suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services. Provided by Master’s level clinicians and adhering to Best Practice Standards, our free prevention trainings decrease risk, increase protective factors, and create resiliency in schools and across communities.
Our prevention model begins with our ID Initiative and moves to community education for adults and youth, with our crisis hotline providing wraparound services.
Trainings That Comply with the Mitch Warnock Act
Signed by Governor Ducey on May 9, 2019, the Mitch Warnock Act requires all schools (public & charter) statewide to provide suicide prevention training to school personnel who work with students grades 6th through 12th starting in school year 2020-21.
Currently, the following trainings apply for the Act’s requirements. Like all of our workshops, Teen Lifeline does not charge for staff time to provide these trainings. However, there may be fees for materials.
SafeTALK: This three-hour training program by LivingWorks prepares “helpers” to identify persons with thoughts of suicide and connect them to suicide first aid resources. Participants include anyone who might want to help; minimum age is 15.
ASIST: This two-day training program by LivingWorks prepares participants to identify and respond effectively to persons considering suicide. Participants include anyone who might want to help; minimum age is 16.
Youth Mental Health First Aid: This eight-hour program by the National Council for Behavioral Health introduces common mental health challenges for youth, reviews typical adolescent development, and teaches a 5-step action plan for helping young people in both crisis and non-crisis situations.
More Than Sad: This training by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention aims to increase knowledge of the warning signs of youth suicide, so adults who work with teens are better prepared to identify and refer students who may be at risk.
Act on Facts: This 1-2 hour online, self-paced training program by Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide focuses on the role of educators in the identification and referral of petentially suicidal youth. It also highlights the realities and potential challenges inherent to a school setting and touches on populations that may experience a higher risk of suicidal ideation.
QPR: This 1-hour, online training covers how to Question, Persuade, and Refer someone that may be suicidal. It also touches on common causes, warning signs and resources for working with those in crisis.
Trainings for Parents, Schools, and Service Providers
The community education piece of our comprehensive prevention program begins with training adults in the lives of teens. This ensures that teens who seek help from trusted adults will be successful in finding support. These trainings help adults become more comfortable and confident talking to teens about the problems they face.
Teen Suicide Prevention: This workshop provides information on risk factors, warning signs, motivations, and myths of teen suicide. Participants will learn how to identify and assess teens who are at risk or already thinking about suicide.
Self-Injury: This workshop describes self-injury and its prevalence among youth, types of self-injuring behaviors, how to assess teens who are engaging in self-injury, safety planning, and how to have conversations with teens about self-injury.
Stress and Coping Skills: This workshop covers stressors, symptoms of stress, and how to support teens who are experiencing stress. Healthy and unhealthy coping skills will be discussed as well as strategies for building resiliency in teens.
Grief and Loss: This workshop covers how adolescents experience grief, different types of loss, the grief cycle, and how to support teens through this process. We discuss coping skills and how to identify when teens need outside help.
Conflict Resolution: This workshop focuses on adolescent problem solving and types of peer conflict. Participants will learn strategies for teaching and modeling healthy problem solving, conflict resolution, and empathy.
Clinical Intervention Skills Training: this workshop will briefly cover risk factors, warning signs and most up to date statistics on teen suicide, while focusing more on intervention skills and de-escalation techniques. Upon completion of this training, participants will have a better understanding of how to work with youth experiencing a crisis or suicidal ideation, administer a suicide risk assessment, understand appropriate follow up steps, and create a safety plan.
Classroom Workshops for Youth
The next step in our comprehensive approach is to facilitate workshops for youth. These interactive workshops take place in the natural classrooms of students in sixth through twelfth grade and focus on building resiliency and increasing help-seeking behavior.
In adherence to Best Practice Standards, workshops are conducted for groups of 10 to 35 students and last 45 minutes to 1 hour. Workshops are provided by Master’s level clinicians who can identify teens at risk and connect them to support and resources.
Teen Suicide and Depression: This workshop includes myths, motivations, risk factors, warning signs, protective factors, and resources related to teen suicide. Students will develop coping strategies, identify safe adults, and learn how to support their friends.
Stress and Coping Skills: This workshop focuses on what stress looks and feels like for adolescents, and how stress affects them personally. Students learn about healthy and unhealthy coping skills and discuss constructive strategies for managing stress.
Grief and Loss: This workshop covers what grief is, different kinds of loss, and symptoms of grief. Students will discuss ways of coping with grief and will learn how to better support their peers when they are grieving.
Conflict Resolution: This workshop reviews types of conflict in relationships. Conflict resolution skills are taught to empower students to resolve issues on their own and identify when it is necessary to get adults involved.