Suicide Screening and Surveillance of Students, Discrimination, and Privacy: The Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (original) (raw)
Related papers
Student Suicide and Educator Duty: A Law and Policy Survey
1999
This paper outlines educators' responsibilities when a student speaks of suicide. It focuses on suicide in Illinois and reports on a survey that asked principals about suicide behavior in their schools. The results were divided into three categories: districts with fewer than 1,000 students, districts with 1,000 to 2,500 students, and districts with enrollment over 2,500. The report examines suicide attempts, demographics, and risk factors. It describes the training of staff as well as schools' policies and practices to deal with student suicide, detailing lawsuits over a 5-year period. The survey results show that more than 90 percent of small districts have not experienced student suicide. Although schools with 500 or fewer students accounted for 18 percent of the total self-inflicted deaths among Illinois young people, evidence suggests that smaller schools have not yet recognized and/or addressed the growing problem of suicide among the young. The paper analyzes the applicability of case law on student suicide, discussing some of the principles that have arisen in litigation, including state courts' tendency to provide broad-based legal protection for schools. Overall, the law does not require educators without specific training and experience to discover or diagnose psychiatric, psychological, or emotional conditions that may lead to a student harming him-or herself. (RJM)
American Journal of Public Health, 2009
Voluntary universal screening is advocated as a practical approach to early identification of students at risk for suicide 1-3 based on the assumptions that adolescents do not reveal their suicidal thoughts or behaviors to others 4-6 and they are more likely to report stigmatizing information in a self-administered instrument than they are during a face-to-face evaluation. 7,8 It is not clear, however, the extent to which students identified as at risk during a school screening program overlap with those already of concern to school professionals. Many of the problems that bring a student to the attention of school staff-irritability, substance use, and school absences, for example-are associated with suicidal behavior. 9-12 The value of universal screening would be greatly reduced if school-based screening programs detected students already identified by school staff. Both screening and the evaluations of school professionals are imperfect methods of identifying students with mental health problems.
SAGE Open, 2015
A public health approach to suicide prevention (SP) emphasizes using a comprehensive plan utilizing multiple strategies to address suicide in the community of interest. Universities using this approach are called to develop interventions to increase SP knowledge, reduce suicide risk factors, enhance protective factors, and examine their efforts scientifically to evaluate program effectiveness. The current study polled responding college students ( N = 819) about their exposure to campus SP messaging materials, participation in SP activities, and whether they experiencedhavinga person close to them attempt or die by suicide during the three years of a SP program funded by the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act (2004). Students were also queried about their perceived level of SP knowledge, knowledge of suicide facts, and the stigma associated with receiving treatment for suicidal thoughts and behaviors using the Suicide Prevention Exposure, Awareness, and Knowledge Survey (SPEAKS). Simult...
School-Based Screening for Suicide Risk: Balancing Costs and Benefits
American Journal of Public Health, 2010
Adolescents commonly keep their thoughts about suicide to themselves and many suicide attempts go unrevealed to parents and other adults 1-4 ; furthermore, adolescents rarely seek treatment on their own. 5,6 Proactive screening programs for adolescent suicidality rely on the identification of the principal risk factors for completed suicide (i.e., current suicidal ideation, previous attempt behavior, and the presence of a mood, anxiety, or substance use disorder). One proactive screening program, the Columbia Teen Screen program, has employed a school-based screening approach, the Columbia Suicide Screen (CSS), that involves administering a self-completion form with questions about risk factors for suicide such as suicidal ideation, prior suicide attempts, depression, anxiety, and substance use. Students who screen positive (stage 1) are then seen by a clinician for a secondary confirmatory evaluation (stage 2) and, if indicated, the student is case managed to an appropriate referral. With its original algorithm, the CSS has been shown to identify 75% of students considered to be at high risk for suicide 7 and a third of students who had unspecified mental health problems that were not already known to school professionals. 8 Criticisms that the approach generated many false positives were based on our previous reports 7 that were limited to identifying high-risk cases 9-11 and ignored the fact that screening for suicidal ideation and behaviors will commonly reveal nonsuicidal mental illnesses that have never been disclosed.
Evidence-based suicide prevention screening in schools
Children & schools, 2007
Screening for suicidality, as called for by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, is a major public health concern. As a place where adolescents spend a considerable amount of their waking hours, school is an important venue for screening adolescents for suicidal behaviors and providing preventive education and risk management. Social workers, as the largest occupational group of mental health professionals in the United States, have a significant role to play in the national strategy to prevent youth suicide, especially at the school level. This article reviews the literature on suicide prevention screening, warning signs, and risk factors to gain a better understanding of evidence-based screening strategies and discuss the implications for school social workers, counselors, and psychologists. It focuses on the identification of research-based information and explication of potential means for guiding preventive screening and clinical practice with suicidal adolescents. Keywords adolescents; assessment instruments; clinical knowledge; schools; suicide screening Screening for suicidality, as called for by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2003) and the Children's Mental Health Screening and Prevention Act (2003), is a major public health concern. Suicide and suicidal behavior are an increasing problem for adolescents in the United States (Goldsmith, Pellmar, Kleinman, & Bunney, 2002). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that since the 1950s, the rate of suicide in children and adolescents has increased by more than 300 percent (Scherff, Eckert, & Miller, 2005). According to recent data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, in 2005, 16.9 percent of U.S. high school students had seriously considered attempting suicide, and approximately 8.4 percent had attempted suicide at least once in the preceding 12 months (Eaton et al., 2006). Given these alarming statistics, it is imperative to provide suicide prevention education and screening for school-age children and youths. Another rationale for screening is that research has suggested that adolescents will honestly state whether they are suicidal when asked (Miller & DuPaul, 1996). Social workers and other mental health professionals, particularly those in school settings, need to get involved in screening to help reduce suicide and nonfatal suicidal behavior among adolescents (Peebles-Wilkins, 2006). In recent years, the largest increase in the professional mental health workforce has been among social workers. From 1992 to 1998, there was a 309 percent increase in the number of social workers serving mental health institutions, in contrast to a 119 percent increase among psychiatrists and a 204 percent increase among psychologists (Manderscheid et al.,
An Exploratory Study of Suicide Risk Assessment Practices in the School Setting
Psychology in the Schools, 2013
Suicidal behavior in children and youth continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. School personnel have a legal and ethical obligation to recognize and respond to the mental health needs of their students and to take steps to ensure their safety. In this exploratory study, suicide risk assessment practices of three large school districts were examined. More than 3,400 suicide risk assessments were conducted in these districts during the 3 years considered. The results indicate that all three districts have implemented suicide prevention programs that include riskassessment practices in an effort to reduce suicidality. Suicides risk assessments were conducted with at least one child in each grade from kindergarten through 12 th in each district, occurring most frequently at the middle school level. Differences by gender were noted in terms of level of risk and hospitalizations, but no significant differences were observed based on race/ethnicity. These risk assessment efforts of these three districts appear to be promising in preventing suicides: none of the students who were assessed went on to commit suicide. Implications for school-based practices and training are discussed.
University Policy and Procedural Responses to Students at Risk of Suicide
2007
Colleges and universities have recently faced several lawsuits brought by parents of students who have committed suicide or made suicide attempts. The lawsuits are based on varying claims, including negligence, breach of contract, and discrimination. In crafting policies to respond to these lawsuits, universities should not simply seek limiting institutional liability but should balance the private interest of their students, the relationship of the school to parents of the students, requirements of due process, and their commitment to antidiscrimination principles. This paper focuses on the procedural protections in university policies. I argue that suicidal ideation or attempt should not be treated as if the student has committed a disciplinary infraction, but should be treated as a mental health issue that should not trigger a disciplinary proceeding unless reached as a final resort. Institutions should preserve disciplinary proceedings as a form of last resort and afford students protections of minimal due process.
The Role of Teachers in School-Based Suicide Prevention
2011
In response to concerns over youth suicide, there has been an increase in school-based suicide prevention programs. However, we know little about teacher perspectives on school-based suicide prevention and mental health programs. This study examined teacher roles in the implementation of a district-wide suicide prevention program through focus groups and interviews with middle school teachers, administrators, and other school personnel. Study results highlighted teachers' critical role in detecting students at risk for suicide. Factors that appeared to facilitate teacher participation in the suicide prevention program included well-defined crisis policies and procedures, communication of these procedures, collaboration across staff, and the presence of on-campus mental health resources. Participants identified a need for direct teacher training on risk factors for suicide, crisis response, and classroom management. Other strategies for improving suicide prevention efforts included in-school trainings on mental health resources and procedures, regular updates to these trainings, and greater visibility of mental health staff. Keywords Suicide prevention Á School mental health Á Teachers In the report, ''Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative,'' the Institute of Medicine identifies suicide prevention as a national public health concern (Goldsmith, Pellmar, Kleinman, & Bunney, 2002). There has been a nearly 200% increase in the rate of suicide attempts among 11-14 year olds between 1980 and 1999 (U.S. Public Health Service, 1999), with suicide the third leading cause of death in youth ages 10-24 years old (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). Results from the 2007 youth risk behavior surveillance survey (YRBS) indicate that: (1) 15% of students had seriously considered attempting suicide during the 12 months leading up to the survey, (2) 11% of students had made a plan about how they would attempt suicide, and (3) 7% of students had attempted suicide one or more times in the year before the survey (Eaton et al., 2008). These statistics highlight the high likelihood that teachers, school staff, and students will come into contact with or be impacted by students at risk for suicide. Further, students at risk for suicide and related
A Wrap Around Approach to Suicide Prevention in Schools: It’s not just School Counselors…
Teaching and Supervision in Counseling
The prevalence of suicide among children and adolescents is alarming. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020), suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth ages 10-19. Schools are one of the main providers of mental health support for students (O’Neill et al., 2021). Similar to school-based mental health counselors, psychologists, and social workers, school counselors are trained and prepared in suicide risk assessment and intervention. Mental health issues, however, require collaborative approaches that address the complex factors impacting youth, such as the impact of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice. The purpose of this article is to enhance considerations offered by Gallo and Wachter-Morris (2022) in their article, “Suicide intervention in schools: If not school counselors, then who?” by positioning a wrap-around approach as a necessary component of culturally responsive suicide assessment and intervention and to provide ...
The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 2010
Youth suicide is a national public health priority, with policymakers highlighting schools as an ideal setting in which to deliver suicide prevention programs. Over the past decade, the number of schools implementing such programs has grown substantially, yet little is known about how successfully such programs are being implemented. This study examines the implementation of a district-wide suicide prevention program through key informant interviews with school personnel. Schools with higher rates of implementing district protocols for at-risk students had an organized system to respond to at-risk students, a process for effectively responding to students who were atrisk for suicide, and strong administrative support. In contrast, schools that had lower rates of implementing district protocols relied on a handful of individuals for suicide prevention activities and had limited administrative support. Attention to organizational factors leading to successful implementation of school-based suicide prevention programs may enhance schools' role in national adolescent suicide prevention efforts.