Contents

Resources

Leadership, Planning and Service Coordination

Some of the most promising prevention and treatment strategies for reducing risks for suicide among youth have been outlined in other sections. Simply having knowledge about “what works,” no matter how strong or compelling the research evidence is, is not enough to lead to significant changes in suicide prevention and intervention practices. Practice is influenced by much more than the possession of knowledge and thus strategies designed to support practitioners to practice in a more “evidence-based way” need to go beyond simplistic “knowledge transfer” efforts. Active strategies that are designed to foster engagement, promote dialogue, encourage reflection, facilitate shared leadership and enable critique are recommended.

Another important consideration for community planners is the understanding that youth suicide prevention cannot be seen as an exclusively “professional endeavour.” To enable communities to “own” the issue of youth suicide prevention, opportunities also need to be created for youth, parents, and concerned community citizens to get involved. Community participants need to be given the opportunity to actively engage with the youth suicide prevention agenda. This means they must be provided with meaningful opportunities to participate in the emerging plans, which may include challenging and/or questioning the relevance and appropriateness of the suicide prevention program’s goals and objectives.

For a series of useful resources on planning and implementing community-based suicide prevention programs go the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.