Best Practices for Suicide Prevention in Schools

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In Spain, about ten teenagers decide to end their lives daily. What can educational institutions do to prevent this from happening?

Best Practices for Suicide Prevention in Schools
Photo: Oranat Taesuwan
Reading time 4 minutes
Reading Time: 4 minutes

In Spain, about ten teenagers decide to end their lives daily. What can educational institutions do to prevent this from happening?

They were being locked up at home for almost two years due to the pandemic, the constant change of routine with schools opening and closing, social distance, and fear of contagion increase the probability that the child and youth population will present mental health problems. According to the report The State of the World’s Children 2021 published by UNICEF, 13% of young people between 10 and 19 years old have a mental disorder. In 50 % of cases, they began before the age of 14.

In Spain, suicide is the leading cause of unnatural death among young people between 15 and 29. On average, ten young people decide to end their lives daily. In the case of Mexico, the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico estimates that for each completed suicide, 20 non-random attempts were made. What can educational institutions do to prevent this point from being reached?

As students begin to return to the classroom, schools become the places where children and young people spend the most time, so schools play an important role in suicide prevention. Suicidal behavior is not just the intention to kill oneself; it includes thoughts and attempts, so schools must know how to intervene and have the necessary resources to help them stop suffering in silence.

Educational institutions are an ideal resource for students to learn socio-emotional skills; it is the place where they socialize with people their age. It is the first place where they spend a significant number of hours without the supervision of their relatives. That is why it is vital that schools take the opportunity to enhance the ability to manage emotions, self-control and how to relate to other people. Institutions must invest in prevention, offering timely and efficient care for children and young people’s mental health problems. According to a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, it has been found that by applying for emotional resilience programs, schools have reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression in children aged 6 to 12 years. Additionally, there are cases where schools are the only places students have access to such support resources.

The educational community must also be informed about detecting any warning signs that indicate that a student has mental or emotional problems to guide them to obtain help. Academic staff training after a suicide attempt is key, but it is also essential to prepare their colleagues to become good preventive agents. A girl or adolescent has a person with whom she can talk and feel heard generates a vital support line that can save her life. That schools have spaces and professionals to whom students can talk about issues that concern them is an essential step to prevent suicide. In addition, in this way, cases of bullying are also detected and resolved.

Having protocols is also a necessary measure as it helps to know how to deal with students with suicidal ideation or attempts. Knowing what to do in these cases may be the only thing that prevents a fatal outcome. In addition to this, work in the classroom on mental health aspects such as emotional management skills, problem-solving, strategies for cognitive flexibility, stress regulation, and how to act in crises.

The School-Based Suicide Prevention Programs meta-analysis published in The International Handbook of Suicide Prevention, Second Edition, which contains different suicide prevention programs, found that the prevention measures that work best are the following:

  1. Awareness and education curriculum

School programs should be created that have an awareness and education curriculum to teach students about suicide, its risk factors, and what to do when faced with a suicidal student situation. The study concluded that the institutions with this type of curricula showed a significant behavior change and a reduction in the incidence of suicidal ideation and attempts, demonstrating that the model of awareness and education of prevention programs of suicide is a promising avenue that deserves further exploration.

2. Detection is key

Less than 25% of families are aware of their children’s self-injurious and suicidal behaviors, especially since young people do not seek help. According to the study, one solution is to administer a preliminary screening questionnaire and then refer students with red flags to a school counselor or make it easier for them to get emergent psychiatric help.

3. Gatekeepers

Have program strategies focused on raising awareness and detecting? An example is a program used by the United States Air Force to address suicidal and self-injurious behavior known as “Question, Persuade, and Refer” (QPR). Its goal is to increase suicide awareness within school staff, identify at-risk students, improve staff skills to intervene, and generally increase communication between academic staff and students. It involves teaching staff how to identify at-risk youth and then respond appropriately by referring to mental health resources.

The study showed that those at-risk students do not usually seek help from adults themselves, so training educators to act as gatekeepers seems like a more logical solution. However, training adults and peers are critical, as they are more aware of perceptions and behaviors within their social circles. A peer watchdog program is even more effective than “Ask, Persuade and Refer.”

These support programs run by peers and guardians have been used to empower them to spread positive messages change social norms in school settings. Encourage students to develop positive life skills and attitudes and foster a belief and a strategy that promotes seeking help from adults. Additionally, the program seeks to expect peers to seek help when confronted with suicidality.

4. Skills training

The study suggests applying the CARE/CAST program about caring, assessing, responding, empowering, and training (CARE) to students to cope and support (CAST) as it develops skills to prevent suicide. First, the CARE part is about screening with direct intervention followed by motivational interviewing. Then there is the CAST part that aims to increase coping and mood regulation, decrease substance use, and increase school performance. It is about training skills to small groups of students with low average, with a high percentage of absenteeism or direct references from the staff. These are 12 sessions that seek to teach skills and behavior change that reduce risk factors for suicide.

Mental health and suicidal behavior need to be part of the educational context. Beyond just complying with the academic curriculum, schools, educational personnel, and students must be aware of the importance of social co-responsibility and its role in preventing suicide. As mentioned above, there are always attempts before attempting suicide; Knowing
how to identify these and other warning signs can prevent a fatal outcome and help the student get ahead.

Translation by Daniel Wetta

Paulette Delgado

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0