Foster Care Training

In this course, we will examine suicide intervention (assessment, intervention, safety planning, emergency response/hospitalization, follow up care, debrief) with system-involved youth and adults. Using the interpersonal theory of suicide, participants will critically engage with suicide prevention procedures, structures, and assumptions. Drawing on disability justice frameworks and the scholarly field of suicidology, the course will provide opportunities for participants to explore their own values and attitudes regarding suicide. We will learn and practice reliable and valid approaches for assessing if an individual is suicidal and the potential risk/lethality of suicidal thoughts. The workshop will also provide specific skills for asking about suicidality, ways to have conversation about suicidality, and techniques to create comprehensive intervention and follow-up plans. We will seek to contextualize our practice of suicide intervention as relational, as harm reduction, as an expression of care and respect.