Suicide Prevention Training for the Workplace
Working Minds: Suicide Prevention in the Workplace
Working Minds is a workplace suicide prevention program of the Carson J Spencer Foundation. The train‐the‐trainer workshop prepares facilitators to present the Working Minds Suicide Prevention Toolkit. Additionally, the training helps managers and supervisors effectively deal with the aftermath of a suicide crisis.
ABOUT THE WORKING MINDS TOOLKIT: (Spencer‐Thomas & Ginsberg) This national initiative trains businesses and the executives and supervisors who run them how to be proactive instead of reactive and to recognize and address the early warning signs of suicide in the workplace. 
The business toolkit developed by the Carson J Spencer Foundation is listed on the National Best Practices Registry for suicide prevention, (www.sprc.org). Working Minds gives employers an off‐the‐shelf training to help employees learn what to do when facing suicide crises that impact the workplace.
The Working Minds Toolkit comes complete with presenter scripts, worksheets, evaluation tools, and a 27‐minute DVD. The training can be done during a “lunch and learn” session in an hour or a more in‐depth training can be given as a 1/2‐day workshop. Train‐the‐trainer workshops are designed to build capacity and confidence in facilitators giving the trainings.
ABOUT “A MANAGER’S GUIDE TO POSTVENTION IN THE WORKPLACE: 10 ACTION STEPS FOR DEALING WITH THE AFTERMATH OF SUICIDE”: This training covers the essentials of postvention for the workplace: how to provide leadership steps to immediately respond to the traumatic event, how to develop a plan in the short‐term for recovery, and what to consider long‐term strategies for helping employees cope down the line. Participants for this extended training option also receive a guidebook, published by the Carson J Spencer Foundation in partnership with American Association of Suicidology (AAS), the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance), and Crisis Care Network (CCN).
Certification Program Includes:
- A Working Minds Toolkit for each participant, complete with detailed teaching information
- Working Minds 27 minute DVD that covers:
- Suicide prevention in the workplace
- What to do when someone is suicidal
- QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer) Overview
- Suicide Postvention
- Evaluation Tools
- In‐depth training on suicide postvention and a copy of “A Manger’s Guide to Suicide Postvention: 10 Action Steps for Dealing with Suicide in the Workplace.”
- Certification to be a Working Minds Trainer (Train the Trainer Program)
What is QPR?
QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer – 3 simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. Each year thousands of Americans, like you, are saying “Yes” to saving the life of a friend, colleague, sibling, or neighbor. QPR can be learned in our Gatekeeper course in as little as one hour.
In one hour, you can become a Gatekeeper
According to the Surgeon General’s National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (2001), a gatekeeper is someone in a position to recognize a crisis and the warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide. Gatekeepers include parents, friends, neighbors, teachers, ministers, doctors, nurses, office supervisors, squad leaders, foremen, police officers, advisors, caseworkers, firefighters, and many others who are strategically positioned to recognize and refer someone at risk of suicide.
As a QPR-trained Gatekeeper you will learn to:
- recognize the warning signs of suicide
- know how to offer hope
- know how to get help and save a life
Who Needs Training?
In 2002 the American Heart Association estimated that over the past 35 years some 250 thousand CPR instructors have trained several millions of US citizens in CPR. As a result, lives are saved that might otherwise have been lost.
As many people know the city of Seattle, Washington and surrounding King County has trained more citizens in CPR per capita than any other region in the country. As result, CPR-trained citizens are more likely to respond to perceived medical emergencies in Seattle than in any other city in the United States, which leads to more favorable survival rates.
According to Sanddal and his colleagues (Sanddal, 2003), “In the Seattle cardiac care system it is estimated that one in four persons has been exposed to CPR training. One can conjecture that the recognition of, and survival from, an acute suicide event would be more likely if one in four persons were trained as a suicide lay gatekeeper.”
At the end of 2009, an estimated one million American citizens have been trained in QPR by Certified QPR Instructors. Because of the nature of suicidal warning signs, and who is most likely to recognize and respond to them, we at the QPR Institute strongly concur with the goal of one in four persons trained a basic gatekeeper role for suicide prevention in the United States and in other countries.