An Invitation
For those of you who will be attending the American Association of Suicidology Conference in Seattle, Washington please join with other QPR Instructors for a hosted “wine and cheese” reception the evening of April 28, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have worked so hard with QPR for the prevention of suicide and we look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible. For security purposes, the hotel will not give us the suite number in advance, so please be prepared for a personal invitation when we meet in Seattle on the 28th.

Ask a Question, Save a Life
Due to quality control issues, the license to print QPR Booklets and Cards offer is being withdrawn for all those not already in possession of a license effective March 15, 2006. We will continue to assist with customization and printing services. If you are interested in adding your logo and local resource numbers to these materials please contact Kathy White at 509-536-5100 or by email at qinstitute@qwestoffice.net for details.

“Every One Matters”
Thanks to help of Walter Morales, U.S. Army Program Manager/Policy Analyst, Suicide Preven-tion/HIV/DNA Programs, the QPR Institute trained 61 new QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructors at Ft. Lewis, Washington and at Fort Hood, Texas last month. The two day training began with the QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructor’s Course. The second day focused on advanced QPR Suicide Triage Training and how to make an initial assessment of immediate suicide risk. Additional Instructors will be trained in the U.S., Germany and Korea before the end of September, 2006. We are looking forward to an exciting relationship with the Army and hope we can help reduce the tragedy of suicide among these most valued citizens.

For Native America

International News!
The QPR Institute has joined the Global Violence Prevention Advocacy Coalition to work with the U.S. State Department and World Health Organization to translate and export American violence prevention programs and technology to less developed countries. Among the seven forms of violence listed by the WHO, suicide ranks near the top world-wide. We are looking forward to contributing to this effort. Our plan is to donate QPR training programs for translation and use by organizations and agencies. Where trainers are needed, we hope limited state department funding will be available.

Our Neighbors to the North

• Very positive participant evaluations
• No loss in educational content or outcomes
• Significant cost savings in some settings
• Dramatic increases in the convenience factor
  (participants can enter, stop and start the training program at will)
• High levels of acceptance for learning via this platform
  
  Instructions on how to use the blended approach for teaching QPR are posted in the Instructor’s Resource section of the QPR website.

News!
We are working with several liability insurance companies to develop a win-win-win strategy that will a) save the lives of consumers by raising the standard of practice to assure that all mental health and substance abuse consumers are adequately assessed and reassessed while receiving care, b) reduce exposure to claims of suicide mal-practice by obliging clinical providers to show evidence of having completed suicide risk assessment training and documenting such assessments in the medical record, and c) reduce the cost of liability insurance for healthcare providers.

Promoting QPR
This year’s public relations and marketing class at Eastern Washington University will devote spring quarter to the development and testing of a social marketing campaign for suicide prevention using QPR. Students will study content on media portrayals of suicide, contagion, social marketing theory, etc., and then design materials largely targeted at individuals 15-25 years old. The plan is to have duplication masters for this material available to QPR Instructors or to be able to supply them with the actual materials directly, through funding that we hope to receive from corporate America.

“Suicide Prevention is Violence Prevention”
QPR Institute has joined the Emergency Nurses Association in submitting a violence prevention grant proposal to the Centers for Disease Control, with the goal of taking QPR into Emergency Departments in hospitals on a trial basis, using a diffusion of innovation model.

We have almost more irons in the fire that we can count, but this is a good thing and we are counting our blessings.

The QPR Staff and Faculty.