Resources from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center

The Means Matter Campaign

While most efforts to prevent suicide focus on why people take their lives, the Means Matter Campaign focuses on an often overlooked, but no less important issue: how a person attempts — the means they use — plays a key role in whether they live or die. The Means Matter Campaign aims to increase the proportion of suicide prevention groups who promote activities that reduce a suicidal person’s access to lethal means of suicide. For example, some state suicide prevention groups train mental health providers, pediatricians, clergy and others on how to talk with a suicidal person and their family about temporarily storing guns and lethal doses of medication out of the home or securely locked up until the situation improves. Means Matter is sponsored by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center with funding from the Bohnett Foundation and Joyce Foundation.

Please visit the Web site to learn more about the issue and ways to get involved:

http://www.meansmatter.org

The National Center for Suicide Prevention Training Online Workshops

The National Center for Suicide Prevention Training (NCSPT) is a free online educational resource to help public officials, service providers, and community-based coalitions develop effective suicide prevention programs and policies. There are currently four workshops being offered, the newest of which is the “The Research Evidence for Suicide as a Preventable Public Health Problem.” The first workshop “Locating, Understanding, and Presenting Youth Suicide Data” was recently updated to keep pace with changes in sources of local and national data on suicide.

Continuing education units (CEUs) are available for social workers and health educators for all workshops. NCSPT is a joint project of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center. Funding for development of the workshops was provided by the U.S. Health Resources and Service Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

To learn more about the workshops please visit: http://training.sprc.org/