Locating and Understanding Data for Suicide Prevention

Course Description

Effectively preventing suicide requires an understanding of who is attempting and dying by suicide, where the problem is most severe, and under what circumstances attempts and suicide deaths occur. But how do you find the data you need to answer these questions and others? Locating and Understanding Data for Suicide Prevention presents a variety of data sources that are useful for finding information about suicide deaths, suicide attempts, and suicidal ideation. This course also explains key concepts that will help you better understand the data you find.

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Define and understand the difference between suicide deaths, suicide attempts, suicide ideation, and risk and protective factors for suicide.
  • Explain key terms that are essential to accurately interpreting data and making meaningful comparisons; this includes counts, rates, and trends.
  • Identify some commonly used and readily accessible online national data sources, and the type of data that is available from each source.
  • Identify some alternative data sources that may be available in states and communities, the type of data available from these sources, and considerations when approaching organizations and agencies for these data.
  • Think critically about the strengths and limitations of a given data source.

Audience

This course is open to anyone. We highly recommend it for any professional involved in national, state or community suicide prevention.

Course Length

This course can be completed in approximately two hours. You do not have to complete the course in one session. You can exit the course at any time and return later to the place where you left off.

Certificate of Completion

To receive a certificate of completion, you must do the following online:  complete each lesson, pass the posttest (passing score is 80% or higher), and answer the feedback survey questions. 

You can earn a certificate of completion once per year for each course.  We do not offer continuing education credits for any of our courses.

A Strategic Planning Approach to Suicide Prevention

Course Description

If you have been called on to develop or expand a suicide prevention program in a state or community, and you want it to have maximum impact, then this course may be for you. A Strategic Planning Approach to Suicide Prevention can help you identify activities that will be effective in addressing the problem of suicide and help you prioritize your efforts. To bring the approach to life, this training presents a case study that illustrates how a community task force applies the strategic planning process to their work.

This course teaches you to:

  • Describe the suicide problem and its context.
  • Choose long-term goals for a suicide prevention program.
  • Identify key risk and protective factors to focus on.
  • Select or develop interventions to decrease or increase these risk and protective factors.
  • Plan an evaluation.
  • Implement the interventions and the evaluation.
  • Take further action based on the evaluation.

Audience

This course is open to anyone. We highly recommend it for any professional responsible for suicide prevention in states, communities, organizations, schools, or workplaces.

Course Length

This course can be completed in approximately two or three hours. You do not have to complete the course in one session. You can exit the course at any time and return later to the place where you left off.

Certificate of Completion

To receive a certificate of completion, you must do the following online:  complete each lesson, pass the posttest (passing score is 80% or higher), and answer the feedback survey questions. 

You can earn a certificate of completion once per year for each course. We do not offer continuing education credits for any of our courses. 

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