Safe Homes Save Lives – PC CARES virtual Workshop

The Alaska Mental Health in Schools Community of Practice is hosting a half-day learning session on Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide (PC CARES), a community health intervention designed, supported, and implemented by the remote communities of northwestern Alaska.

Registration is free and open to all interested school district personnel and community providers/partners, so please feel free to share this invite with your colleagues.

Participants will be trained to have conversations with a concerned parent or family member about lethal means safety–a proven suicide prevention strategy–and learn how to share the information with their colleagues and embed these practices into organizational protocols.

REGISTER HERE

The single most effective way to prevent suicide is firearm lethal means reduction in settings with guns. Most families in Alaska have firearms, and school staff need to be ready to engage in conversations with family members to keep young people safe, especially when students are struggling with mental health. The hands-on session will offer information and resources to participants and give them time to practice how to engage with parents and guardians about lethal means safety to prevent suicide. Discussions will invite participants to consider how they might institutionalize conversations about lethal means safety in their schools and districts.

The workshop will invite participants to consider how to balance an evidence-based intervention to reduce suicide risk – lethal means safety – with school communication norms related to parents and guardians, and to consider how to respectfully engage with adult family members and community leaders to promote safety when concerned about a student’s mental health struggles, connection with someone who died by suicide, or some other indication of a student’s elevated suicide risk.

Learning objectives:

By the end of the session, participants will be able to…

1. Describe why safe homes (making it 10 minutes harder to hurt oneself) can save lives.
2. Offer practical ideas for making homes safer (locking medications, guns, ammo) to lessen suicide risk.
3. Use the tools (scripts, handouts, supplies) to practice having conversations about how to make homes safer
4. Discuss what it would be like to facilitate this discussion with a prospective audience, identifying any potential barriers and opportunities.

Participants will get:

1. Informational flyer with ideas for making homes safer
2. Safe homes scripts and role play practice for participants to be prepared to have these conversations
3. Resources for how to get lethal means safety supplies (cable locks, locking medication boxes), for free

Speakers:

Lisa Wexler, PhD, MSW is co-creator and Primary Investigator supporting PC CARES. Lisa has been working in and with northwestern Alaska as a therapist, community organizer, and researcher for over 20 years. Dr. Wexler is Professor of Social Work and a Research Professor for the Research Center on Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Dr. Wexler’s participatory and applied research program aims to (1) translate research into strategic, self-determined community action; (2) describe and amplify sources of strength and resilience in rural Indigenous communities that promote youth wellness; and (3) develop feasible upstream youth suicide prevention models.

Tara Schmidt, MPH provides PC CARES program support based in Alaska and has been a member of Wexler’s research and training team since 2018. Raised in Nome and based in Homer, Tara communicates with project partners and community leaders, supports local facilitators of the program, organizes data collection and training activities, public relations, communication, and product development.