Suicide prevention education is challenging, even daunting, but it is doable, and it is being done, in large part, by people like you. This edition of the newsletter offers a number of ideas on how to “get to” audiences.

First, we are busy working with a number of groups and students on how to fashion public health messages that link untreated depression (and other disorders) with the risk of suicide and how QPR can help. We are already using some of these messages. We will be making them available to you over time, and we hope with e-formatted marketing materials that you may use in your efforts to gain access for training.

We will be developing marketing ideas and materials to help you access a variety of groups and sites. According to Dr. Eric Caine of the University of Rochester, in a presentation at the annual conference of the American Association of Suicidology held in Seattle this past April, suicide prevention education could benefit from a “site approach.” Basically, this approach identifies physical locations where substantial numbers of people and potential gatekeepers can be captured and trained in one place. Sites that come to mind quickly include:

Dr. Caine points out that in delivering training to sites, effectiveness depends on answering the questions: Who will you hit? And, who will you miss? The effectiveness of QPR depends, in part, on saturation training (to increase the probability that a suicidal communication is detected by someone already in the population). One process to determine program penetration would be to answer to the following question: “Of all the persons at this site, what percent attended and completed QPR training?” The closer this figure is to 100%, the greater the odds that a suicidal member of that community will be identified before a suicide attempt is made. We are awaiting research reports on the relationship of saturation training to new case detection now.

Another approach might be to use “affiliation groups, clubs or organizations” that meet with some frequency. A group of marketing students at Eastern Washington University is developing a campaign plan to take QPR to campus-based groups using both the site method and the affiliation method. The sites include the residential dorms, classrooms and informal gatherings. Affiliated groups include all the clubs listed in the university directory, e.g., the ski club. One idea is to develop a “friendly competition” between university-based clubs to achieve 100% membership trained in QPR.

“Every One Matters”
Dr. Paul Quinnett and Brian Quinnett, MS recently trained 60 new QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructors in Seoul, Korea. Those trained included both Army and Air Force personnel stationed across South Korea, as well as several chaplains representing the Republic of Korea Army. The two day training (two sessions) 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. In addition, QPR Master Trainer, Robert Robey, MS provided the same training for 30 Army personnel stationed in Germany.

• Six states had more than 10 murder-suicides in the six-month study period: Pennsylvania (18); Texas (18); California (17); Florida (15); North Carolina (14); and, Tennessee (11).
• Ninety-four percent of the offenders in murder-suicides were male.
• Seventy-four percent of all murder-suicides involved an intimate partner (spouse, common-law spouse, ex-spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend). Of these, 96 percent were females killed by their intimate partners.
• Most murder-suicides with three or more victims involved a “family annihilator”—a subcategory of intimate partner murder-suicide. Family annihilators are murderers who kill not only their wives/girlfriends and children, but often other family members as well, before killing themselves.
• Forty-seven children and teens under the age of 18 were murdered in murder-suicides.
• Most murderers in murder-suicides are older than their victims.
• Seventy-five percent of murder-suicides occurred in the home.

• Are less forgiving about poorly prepared instructors, having questionable expertise and not having suitable supplementary materials (your QPR booklets and cards fill this bill)
• Value their own life experience (for good reason) and want to share and discuss it in small groups and as a class
• Know the world to be complex, and so expect to learn multiple ways of solving problems and to have discretion in applying the material
• Need the opportunity for reflection after trying out a new application or method
• Do not learn by rote; it just won’t work for them
• Are practical and are usually quite disinterested in theory
• Demand that the materials have immediate utility and relevant application