Support Provided by The Office of Suicide Prevention 

Who are "Gatekeepers"?
In suicide prevention, "Gatekeepers" are those people who first come into contact with a person at risk of suicide. The role of Gatekeepers is to identify and appropriately respond to people at risk of suicide and to consult with, and refer people at risk to other services or professionals. Professional Gatekeepers, such as mental health professionals, may also be required to conduct risk assessments as part of their role. As of May 2010, 110 people have been trained as gatekeepers in Eagle County.

What is Gatekeeper Training?
Gatekeeper training is based on the premise that individuals at risk of suicide come into contact with a range of community people who have the capacity to direct them towards help (Toumbourou et. al, 2000). The purpose of gatekeeper training is not to train people to act as counselors but rather to raise awareness of people at risk and refer for professional treatment. This linkage to professional help is fundamental to the success of gatekeeper training as a suicide prevention strategy. Research has found that gatekeeper training results in a stable and significant increase in participant's readiness to intervene with a person at risk. Three levels of gatekeeper training ranging from 1 hour to 3 hours to two days will be offered in Eagle County.

Suicide Alertness for Everyone (safeTALK) is a 3 hour training program that teaches participants to recognize persons that might be having thoughts of suicide and to connect them with community resources trained in suicide intervention. The ‘safe' of safeTALK stands for ‘suicide alertness for everyone.' The TALK letters stand for the practice actions that one does to help those with thoughts of suicide: Tell, Ask, Listen, and KeepSafe. This training was developed by LivingWorks Education. www.livingworks.net

ERYC will offer four safeTALK trainings for groups of 10-15 participants. These will be scheduled starting in June 2010. Please contact ERYC at 949-9250 if your interested in taking or hosting a safeTALK training.

QPR Suicide Triage Training is a one hour web-based course. QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer, it's an emergency mental health intervention that teaches lay and professional Gatekeepers to recognize and respond positively to suicide warning signs and behaviors. QPR is theory based; it recognizes that even socially isolated suicidal individuals have contact with potential rescuers. QPR reaches out to high-risk people within their own environments and does not require suicidal people to ask for help. www.qprinstitute.com 

If interested in taking this training, please contact The ERYC at 949-9250.

Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) is a two-day, two-trainer workshop designed for members of all care-giving groups. The emphasis is on teaching suicide first-aid to help a person at risk stay safe and seek further help as needed. Participants learn to use a suicide intervention model to identify persons with thoughts of suicide, develop a safe plan based upon a review of risk, be prepared to follow-up, and become involved in suicide-safer community networks. This training was also developed by LivingWorks Education. www.livingworks.net

The ASIST training will be held in September 8-9 2010. This training can accommodate 30-35 people. If interested, please contact Meredith Van Ness at The ERYC 949-9250 to sign up.

"I attended the 2-day ASIST Training this year and thought it was spectacular. I run a counseling center, but I am not myself a counselor, so I went to this program as a lay person who wanted to know what to do in my day-to-day life when I encounter someone who may be thinking about taking his/her own life. People from all walks of life attended this 2-day training - counselors, community leaders, pastors, EMTs, lay persons. All of us walked away with knowledge and the self-confidence that we had the tools to intervene if called to do so. Probably the best part of the training was the amount of role playing we were able to do, and in this way, we were able to incorporate the teaching into our own personalities and words, thus making it readily accessible if at some future point, we needed to apply the skills we had learned." - Elizabeth Myers, Samaritan Center of the Rockies.

For More Resources check out:

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/depression_teen.htm