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20 - Adolescent Suicidal Behavior in Schools: What to Know and What to Do

from Part IV - Behavioral and Social-Emotional Interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
James J. Mazza  and
David N. Miller
Edited by
Frank C. Worrell ,
Tammy L. Hughes  and
Dante D. Dixson
Frank C. Worrell
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Tammy L. Hughes
Affiliation:
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh
Dante D. Dixson
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Summary

School psychologists play a vital role in the mental health and well-being of students and are often tasked with establishing the assessment and intervention plans for reducing the severity of mental health difficulties, including suicidal behavior. With suicide the second-leading cause of death for middle and high school students, school psychologists need to be familiar with what their role is in recommending and providing suicide prevention and intervention programs within a multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework. This chapter provides an overview of the problem of adolescent suicidal behavior (“what to know”), while also providing specific recommendations (“what to do”) for suicide prevention/intervention programs within each tier of the MTSS. Finally, this chapter includes specific guidelines for implementing “suicide postvention” (after a death due to suicide) procedures, in hopes of reducing the likelihood of another death due to suicide.

Keywords

adolescent suicidal behavioryouth suicideschool-based suicide preventionMTSS and suicideadolescent mental health
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Applied School Psychology , pp. 335 - 352
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, & Suicide Prevention Resource Center. (2018). After a suicide: A toolkit for schools (2nd ed.). Waltham, MA: Education Development Center. Retrieved from www.sprc.org/sites/default/files/resource-program/AfteraSuicideToolkitforSchools.pdfGoogle Scholar
Erbacher, T. A., Singer, J. B., & Poland, S. (2015). Suicide in schools: A practitioner’s guide to multi-level prevention, assessment, intervention, and postvention. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hart, S. (2012). Student suicide: Suicide postvention. In Brock, S. E. & Jimerson, S. R. (Eds.), Best practices in school crisis prevention and intervention, second edition (pp. 525–547). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.Google Scholar
Miller, D. N. (2011). Child and adolescent suicidal behavior: School-based prevention, assessment, and intervention. New York, NY: Guilford.Google Scholar

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