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Monday, September 12, 2011

A Guide to Promoting Emotional Health and Preventing Suicide in Senior Living Communities

A Guide to Promoting Emotional Health and Preventing Suicide in Senior Living Communities is written for administrators and managers of departments of nursing, social work, pastoral care, wellness, and staff development in senior living communities.

Senior living communities include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, independent living facilities, and continuing care retirement communities. Too often, staff in senior living communities do not think about suicide prevention until a suicide attempt or death occurs.

This Guide will help you be proactive by implementing policies, protocols, programs, and activities that will improve all residents’ quality of life, while also helping protect vulnerable members of the community from suicide and related emotional health problems.

The Guide contains the following components:
  • Getting Started: Includes background information on suicide and suicide prevention, directions for using the Guide, a Sample Policy, and a Facility Assessment Checklist
  • Goals and Action Steps: Includes sections addressing each of the three essential approaches to suicide prevention in a senior living community:
  • Section 1. Whole Population Approach: Discusses strategies to promote the emotional health of all residents, regardless of their risk for suicide
  • Section 2. At-Risk Approach: Discusses how to identify and assist residents who are at a particularly high risk for suicide and related emotional health problems
  • Section 3. Crisis Response Approach: Focuses on what senior living communities should do after suicide deaths and attempts
  • Each section has background information, goals relevant to the approach, and action steps your staff can take to meet those goals. 
  • Tools for Implementing Action Steps: Includes worksheets, fact sheets, and program descriptions to help you create and implement the policies, protocols, programs, and activities discussed in the Goals and Action Steps component of the Guide
  • References

1 comment:

Cat Ray said...

This seems like such a good program especially for senior living communities .