The loss of a client to suicide is a painful personal and professional experience for mental health providers. Whether trainee or experienced professional, the affected clinician often reports feeling overwhelmed and unprepared for the experience of client suicide, together with significant emotional distress and diminished work performance. In…

The suicide of a competent and popular teacher required rapid but careful response by administrators at a midwestern high school. This article explains how faculty members and students were informed and how crisis specialists were brought in to help respond to strong student reactions. (PGD)

The article details those characteristics of gifted students which make them more vulnerable to suicide. It discusses warning signs to help identify gifted students at risk of suicide and describes prevention and intervention programs. Resources are listed. (Author/DB)

Teenage depression and suicide are a growing problem across the nation. A New Jersey high school has developed a crisis management team to deal with such problems. Twelve steps to take in developing such a team are provided, along with guidelines on the referral process, student representation, and community support. (TE)

The article discusses a four-part crisis intervention training program used to train selected high school students as peer counselors in a suicide prevention program. Initial evaluation data suggest many students use the peer counseling service because school counselors are unavailable or a stigma is attached to seeing a counselor. (Author/DB)

Describes a Wisconsin middle school's step-by-step plan for dealing with student suicide. The plan calls for maintaining a normal school day and providing counseling services directed by an interview team (counselors, social workers, and teachers) trained to help people handle suicide. Tips for managing suicide's impact are provided. (MLH)

Mental health problems can develop at any point in life and may be influenced by a variety of factors, including genetics or family history of a disorder, chemical imbalances in the brain, or stressors in the environment. Adolescence is a time of great change and transition, when youth are starting to make decisions about career paths, further…

Information to help teachers recognize the potential for suicide among hearing impaired and other students is presented. The "Suicide Decision Tree" emphasizes six important content areas (verbal signs, behavioral signs, stressors, past history, suicide plan, and resources) throughout a three-part process of monitoring, investigating, and…

Summarizes a variety of religious issues before United States courts, including two religion-in-the-schools cases in New Jersey and Georgia and two New York cases involving public assistance of private schools. Discusses a wrongful death lawsuit in Connecticut concerning a teenage suicide. (MLH)

The article describes the implementation of Immediate Strategic Intervention, a counseling strategy which utilizes trained adolescent female friends to help during the first 24 hours of an emotional crisis (e.g., potential suicide). Middle school adolescents can be taught basic psychological concepts and utilize them in supporting friends and…

Describes advances made in the understanding of how sex hormones may modify various cognitive skills, how normal brain signaling mechanisms may cause nerve cell death, and how many cells appear to hold genetic agents which determine their own destruction. (RT)

Since no school district is immune to death, the concepts of death and dying, stress management, and suicide should be worked into the curriculum beginning in the fourth grade. Advice is given concerning planning for potential tragedy, responding to a student's or staff member's death, and establishing memorials. Two figures cite teenage suicide…

The article examines strategies for preventing suicide in the secondary schools. Cognitive, social, and ethical barriers to prevention are described, and a model curriculum-based primary prevention program is presented. A discussion of secondary prevention focuses on students at risk and counseling approaches such as direct counseling or peer…

To deal with rising teen suicide and attempted suicide, this Michigan school system developed a comprehensive crisis response plan encouraging greater communication with students, parents, and school staff members and involving immediate response by trained professionals and followup procedures to stabilize the school community. (WTH)

Filling a tremendous need, this highly practical book adapts the proven techniques of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to treatment of multiproblem adolescents at highest risk for suicidal behavior and self-injury. The authors are master clinicians who take the reader step by step through understanding and assessing severe emotional…