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Establishing Standards for the Assessment of Suicide Risk Among Callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Author(s) -
Joiner Thomas,
Kalafat John,
Draper John,
Stokes Heather,
Knudson Marshall,
Berman Alan L.,
McKeon Richard
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
suicide and life‐threatening behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.544
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1943-278X
pISSN - 0363-0234
DOI - 10.1521/suli.2007.37.3.353
Subject(s) - hotline , suicide prevention , poison control , occupational safety and health , certification , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , risk assessment , mental health , medicine , medical emergency , environmental health , engineering , computer security , psychiatry , political science , telecommunications , pathology , law , computer science
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline was launched in January 2005. Lifeline, supported by a federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, consists of a network of more than 120 crisis centers located in communities across the country that are committed to suicide prevention. Lifeline's Certification and Training Subcommittee conducted an extensive review of research and field practices that yielded the Lifeline's Suicide Risk Assessment Standards. The authors of the current paper provide the background on the need for these standards; describe the process that produced them; summarize the research and rationale supporting the standards; review how these standard assessment principles and their subcomponents can be weighted in relation to one another so as to effectively guide crisis hotline workers in their everyday assessments of callers to Lifeline; and discuss the implementation process that will be provided by Lifeline.