John Kalafat

School Approaches to Youth Suicide Prevention

Universal and indicated school-based suicide prevention programs are described, including conceptual bases, program components, ineffective approaches, and evaluation outcomes. Controlled evaluations of second-generation programs report positive outcomes, including positive changes in knowledge, attitudes toward suicide, intent to seek help, and reduction of suicidal feelings. Two comprehensive programs reported reduced suicide rates in targeted counties subsequent to program dissemination. Caution is raised concerning variations in program quality. Currently, some model universal and indicated programs show promise and are candidates for more research on mediating and moderating variables and program outcomes.

The Implementation and Institutionalization of a School-Based Youth Suicide Prevention Program

This paper describes the implementation and institutionalization of a comprehensive, county-wide, school-based youth suicide prevention program. Ten years after the program dissemination was begun, the extent of implementation and institutionalization was assessed utilizing a survey of the 46 public high schools in the county together with in depth interviews with informants from the first 11 schools that had adopted the program. All but one of the 31 survey respondents, and 9 of 11 interviewees had retained the student lessons that were the core of the program. Program retention was associated with a variety of factors suggested by the literature as supportive to the institutionalization of school-based innovations.

Issues in the Evaluation of Youth Suicide Prevention Initiatives

The field of school-based youth suicide prevention is currently characterized by scatteredencouraging evaluations of conceptually grounded universal and indicated programs. Larger scale, long-termevaluations that systematically assess implementation as well as proximal and distal outcomes of adequately disseminated programs are needed. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Surgeon General have made suicide prevention a priority. A recent national conferencebrought together national researchers and produced reviews of the field and a draft of a national research agenda for suicide prevention that included schoolbased youth suicide prevention programs. It is hoped that these developments will provide resources for researchers to expand the current evaluations to a more systematic empirical base for youth suicide prevention efforts.

Suicide prevention and youth: recommendations for public policy

States that suicidal behaviour among youth has increased significantly over the past several decades and is now the third leading cause of death for 15‐24 year olds. Addresses public policy issues and the current state research aimed at reducing the incidence of suicide in this age group. Suggests that schools and their systems should do a great deal more to prevent youth suicide and that schools are the logical place to implement effective suicide prevention programmes.

Experimental and pragmatic approaches to the incidence of adolescent suicide

Since the early 1960s, the incidence of adolescent suicide has been increasing at an alarming rate. In response, social science researchers working in both the experimental and pragmatic epistemological paradigms have been studying the processes involved in this phenomenon and developing suicide prevention and suicide response programs in schools. In this article we review general issues involved in the contrasting and, at times, conflicting approaches taken by experimental and pragmatic researchers to adolescent suicide. These issues are then illustrated in a case study in which experimental and pragmatic proponents worked together on an evaluation of a school-based suicide education program.

The Application of Community Psychology Principles in Diverse Settings

SUMMARY This paper describes the application of such community psychology principles of empowerment and systemic interventions in a variety of applied settings, including school systems, a university campus, and a community hospital. The consistent application of such principles illustrates one way in which a viable career as community psychologist can be maintained in settings that do not have community psychology positions per se.