Challenge

Suicide has remained a leading cause of death in the United States for the past two decades, impacting youth, adults, and individuals from all races and ethnicities. There has been national consensus on recommendations that communities should follow and listings of evidence-informed strategies to prevent suicide. But there has also been a lack of concrete guidance on how communities should go about achieving and implementing these suicide prevention recommendations and strategies. 

Through funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via Safe States Alliance, EDC developed the Web-based Community-Led Suicide Prevention Toolkit. This toolkit provides concrete, real-world guidance and resources that any community can use to develop the seven key elements necessary for implementing evidence-informed, equitable, and sustainable suicide prevention efforts.

Key Activities

The Community-Led Suicide Prevention team has carried out the following activities:

  • Convened an advisory board of suicide prevention experts focused on local and county-level prevention to help inform the creation of a suicide prevention toolkit
  • Developed a Web-based toolkit that provides actionable steps communities can follow to develop evidence-informed, equitable, and sustainable suicide prevention efforts
  • Created the Community-Led Suicide Prevention Strategic Planning Worksheet that guides communities in selecting strategies that are evidence-informed and a good fit for their local context
  • Produced the Community-Led Suicide Prevention Getting Started Guide to help communities identify the first steps they should take in their suicide prevention efforts
  • Shared short, real-world vignettes from communities across the United States describing the key steps they have taken to create locally led suicide prevention efforts

Impact

The Community-Led Suicide Prevention Toolkit:

  • Features plain language and practical how-to steps for communities across the country to use in their local suicide prevention efforts
  • Presents previously lacking guidance to communities on how to develop strong suicide prevention efforts that are evidence-informed, equitable, and sustainable
  • Offers a resource hub with evidence-informed resources from the field that have been curated specifically for use in community suicide prevention

Learn More

Community-Led Suicide Prevention
:
PROJECT DIRECTOR
DURATION
2021-Present
FUNDED BY
CDC and Safe States Alliance
PARTNERS

Safe States Alliance