Findings from a recent review by the Children’s Health Policy Centre offer hope for preventing childhood suicide. These findings suggest five implications for practice and policy:

• Support more research on promising school-based suicide prevention programs. Of the programs we reviewed, Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) showed the most promise — reducing suicide attempts as well as reducing serious suicidal ideation by one-year follow-up in a large study spanning 10 countries. However, before considering implementation of this program, replication evaluations are needed, ideally in BC student populations. Policy-makers and practitioners can support researchers in these efforts.

• Recognize that effective programs can be brief, using limited resources. YAM was delivered in one month, with facilitators delivering two lectures and supporting three role-play sessions. Given the demands on schools, the brevity of this program makes it compelling and worth further evaluation.

• Build on the collaborative relationships between practitioners and school personnel. BC has invested in bringing more mental health practitioners into schools. Forging these collaborations can help facilitate suicide prevention programs in BC schools.

• Consider delivery in settings beyond schools. Effective suicide prevention programs could be delivered outside of schools, for example, in after-school programs, which often reach large numbers of children. New evaluations in these settings would also improve the knowledge base, informing new options to help young people.

• Understand the importance of directly teaching suicide prevention skills. Efforts to reduce suicide should ideally involve reaching as many young people as possible using effective universal interventions. Yet the high-quality research evidence on these interventions is still limited. More research is therefore needed. Nevertheless, programs such as YAM can be a helpful starting point. For example, policy-makers and practitioners could collaborate with researchers to conduct new evaluations of this promising program. Doing so can add to the evidence that would benefit young people in BC.

Investing in new research with BC children is an important step toward reducing the impact of suicide in this province.

For more information, see Vol. 16, No. 4 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.