Summer 2005

 There are only three items in this summer edition, but the last one is big news!

News! The QPR Institute has donated 14 evidence-based test items for review and possible adoption by National Association of Addiction Counselors (NAADAC) to be used in their national licensing exam. That NAADAC is embracing the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention by including test items for its practitioners is commendable. We hope this move will encourage colleges and universities preparing substance abuse treatment professionals for the field to adopt more suicide prevention curricula and help achieve Goal 6 of the National Strategy.

News! A new, generic QPR role-play “Practice Session” has been added to your tool kit and can be found in the password protected area of our Web site. The need for a role-play experience with the QPR technique is essential to the kind of outcomes we are all aiming for: competent gatekeepers. We strongly encourage you to download, print and use this practice session package in any training venue where you can get at least 90 minutes.
Research. Recent suicide attempters treated with cognitive therapy were 50 percent less likely to try to kill themselves again within 18 months than those who did not receive the therapy, report researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A targeted form of cognitive therapy designed to prevent suicide proved better at lifting depression and feelings of hopelessness than the usual care available in the community, according to Gregory Brown, Ph.D., Aaron Beck, M.D., University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues, who published their findings in the August 3, 2005 "Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)".
Complete NIH News Release is available online at http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/aug2005/nimh-02a.htm.

Big News! Over the past three years we have been asked by several universities, large employers, federal organizations, and military installations to offer QPR training online. Our initial reaction to these requests has been to counter offer with our traditional train-the-trainer program, as we have long held the belief that face-to-face gatekeeper training is the preferred mode.

But the demand for online training has only increased, and we could be wrong. Because of limited time frames, several major universities have asked to shorten the QPR program to 40-45 minutes (traditional classroom meeting length). We’ve had to deny these requests. Many have asked if could not blend QPR online with face-to-face instructor-led meetings.

As a result of this growing demand, and with our new university partner, Eastern Washington University, a group of educational experts skilled in distance learning technology, programming staff, and researchers from other universities - together with Team QPR (our staff) – have spent the past year building and testing what we call now QPR Online! The program is co-sponsored by Eastern Washington University Office of Professional Development and the QPR Institute. It is delivered over broad band internet connections and may be hosted online by anyone.

Some the features of the QPR Online!

  • Training is self-paced using a compelling blend of video, text, and voice lecture.
  • The program is interactive and available on-demand 24/7.
  • A “just in time” feature allows gatekeepers to re-enter the program for emergency use and/or take annual booster sessions for up to three years.
  • Pre-post survey and evaluation data are collected automatically.
  • Hard copy QPR booklets and cards are provided to each participant.
  • Passing a 15-item quiz on content is required to earn a printable Certificate of Course Completion.
  • Any organization may customize and host QPR Online! at no cost and provide it to its membership or constituents at a discount.
  • The program can be easily customized for local, university, or company EAP crisis response and referral systems.
  • Where possible, QPR Online! is offered in conjunction with the services of Certified QPR Instructors.

This last bullet point is important to all of you. In one major project in which we are awaiting funding (training thousands of staff in over 120 sites in multiple states), our proposal calls for blending the didactic online QPR course with a face-to-face session. Staff takes QPR Online! to learn the key concepts, pass the online quiz and print their certificate. After passing the online course, they meet in small groups with on-site Certified QPR Instructors for a review of QPR, Q&A, role-plays and practice sessions, and to learn the crisis response referral procedures unique to their agency, organization or community.

We have found this second step important to effective QPR interventions, and as QPR gains ground, we may need your help to support organizations, agencies, schools, universities and businesses that elect to host or teach QPR to their members, students, staff and employees.

Plans and Implications
One of the Institute’s missions has been to address suicide prevention in rural America, where rates are highest and resources extremely limited. What rural communities need is an affordable design that provides suicide prevention solutions at costs that can realistically be borne by small schools, small police departments, small churches, small city halls, and local grassroots organizations. As broadband access to the World Wide Web expands into rural and frontier America, we believe QPR Online! is one of those solutions. We, and we hope many of you, are ready to embrace technology to save lives.

Please consider:

  • We believe suicide prevention education will move from optional to mandatory. Some correctional and healthcare organizations have already taken this step. But for this to happen, something like QPR training must be a) readily available, b) affordable, and c) cost-effective. Otherwise, suicide prevention education will remain a luxury, not a health and public safety requirement.
  • To meet future state regulatory compliance requirements for mandatory suicide prevention education, the need for standardized content is essential.
  • Research has shown that computer-based training, when coupled with instructor-led experiential role-plays for skill development produces high quality outcomes.
  • Time for suicide prevention training is severely limited. Online self-paced learning opens new learning opportunities for working people, 24/7 operations such as hospitals, 911-211 professionals, police and fire personnel, students, and others, and voids the need for expensive instructor time to deliver repetitive core content.
  • Web-based assessment tools can measure training effectiveness and generate low-cost but important outcome reports to support and justify future funding.
  • Course content can be updated at low cost.
  • “Just in time” training is available for new hires or new students, and becomes life-saving in the event the user needs to “remember” the QPR method. (Think a 911 operator talking you through CPR on someone in crisis.)
  • Password access to the online content allows for low-cost annual booster sessions. (Upon passing the quiz, the program automatically dates the Certificate of Course Completion for printing but allows only one name on each certificate per User ID and password, thus reducing educational fraud.)

Summary
We did not take this step to move QPR to an online environment lightly or at little expense. We have worked with a number of well-known researchers to improve the measures we will be using to evaluate the outcomes from this endeavor, and will be publishing our results in the future, including comparing QPR Online! to our traditional training methods. We will also be researching the best ways to teach gatekeepers to actually intervene in the lives of persons at risk for suicidal behaviors.

We took this innovation step because most people under age 35 are already learning online, and because we believe that in order save one life from suicide we must train hundreds to save one, thousands to save hundreds, and millions to save thousands. With your help we can do this!

If your organization would like to test QPR Online! to see how it can be hosted and customized for your community, organization, agency or state, please contact Brian Quinnett at bquinn@turbonet.com
News. The Montana Faith-Health Initiative has awarded AFSP Montana and its QPR Resource Center a 'Promising Practice' award at its annual conference. For more information please visit: http://www.mtfaithhealth.org/promising_practices.htm
For new latest edition of Advancing Suicide Prevention
click here
The QPR Institute wishes to acknowledge the U.S. Armed Forces and their families for their efforts in the Middle East.
Keep up the wonderful and life-saving work!
The QPR Institute
P.O. Box 2867
Spokane, WA 99220
e-mail: qinstitute@qwest.net
www.qprinstitute.com
Phone: 888-726-7926