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ERIC Number: EJ1351538
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022-Oct
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1532-8759
EISSN: EISSN-1545-682X
Available Date: N/A
Reducing Suicide-Related Stigma through Peer-to-Peer School-Based Suicide Prevention Programming
Wright-Berryman, Jennifer L.; Thompson, Devyn; Cramer, Robert J.
Children & Schools, v44 n4 p216-223 Oct 2022
Youth suicide rates have consistently risen over the past decade, and stigma related to mental health may create a barrier to young people seeking help. Schools are a common intercept point for mental health and suicide prevention programming. Hope Squad, a school-based, peer-to-peer, suicide prevention program, uses trained and mentored students nominated by their peers to perform intentional outreach with fellow students. When a Hope Squad member detects a mental health or suicide crisis in a peer, they alert a trusted adult. We employed a cohort, wait-list--control, cross-sectional survey design. We recruited more than 3,400 students from nine schools--five with Hope Squads and four without--to observe differences in student-body suicide-related stigma. At the end of the academic year, there was significantly lower stigma in Hope Squad schools versus those without the program. Findings suggest that a peer-to-peer, school-based, suicide prevention program may reduce stigmatizing attitudes related to suicide. Next steps include a randomized controlled trial to identify changes in help-seeking and similar protective factors.
Oxford University Press. Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, UK. Tel: +44-1865-353907; Fax: +44-1865-353485; e-mail: jnls.cust.serv@oxfordjournals.org; Web site: http://cs.oxfordjournals.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A