First, welcome to all the new Certified QPR Gatekeeper Instructors! Since January 2005, 362 new QPR Instructors have been certified all across America. They come from all walks of life, from all races and ethnic groups, including firemen, professors, police officers, nurses, clergy, coaches, counselors, cooks and can-do volunteers. Training Gatekeepers in every venue imaginable, QPR Instructors trained more than 60,000 new Gatekeepers in calendar year 2006, bringing the total trained to over 300,000. These are real numbers with real outcomes. Congratulations!

We are only beginning. As some of you know, our ultimate goal is to train at least one in four adult Americans in QPR, or at least one parent per family. This is a massive undertaking, but at least we have never been accused of dreaming small. The effectiveness of public health education depends on training hundreds to save one, thousands to save hundreds, and millions to save thousands. Our goal is to infuse you with this same vision of hope and energize you to train even more people to help save lives from suicide.

The odds of surviving a suicide crisis rests, in part, on whether someone the suicidal personal already knows has been trained in QPR. While we have only limited data to support this view, we are convinced that the greatest danger faced by a suicidal sufferer is inaction by those who witness the warning signs.

QPR Online! We are pleased to announce the availability of QPR Gatekeeper training via the World Wide Web. Together with our educational partner, the Division of Educational Outreach at Eastern Washington University, we have developed and carefully tested this new training delivery system. This distance learning methodology will provide 24/7 availability to QPR Gatekeeper training, including “on-demand” access if the Gatekeeper encounters a suicidal crisis months, or even years, after initial training.

QPR Online is a self-paced program which takes approximately 60-90 minutes to complete. The 24-page QPR Gatekeeper Booklet and QPR Pocket Reference Card are sent via US Mail or provided to participants who complete the course by a Certified QPR Instructor.

While the new program can stand alone, one plan is to marry the online program with face-to-face support by QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructors where possible. A special tool kit addition on how to blend your current work with QPR Online! is included with this newsletter and posted on the Instructor’s password protected area of our Web site.

The QPR Institute is also seeking organizations to join us in furthering the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and, we hope, to save lives and reduce risks associated with suicidal behaviors. To learn more about QPR Online co-branding and partnership opportunities, please visit the QPR Gatekeeper Web site hosted by Eastern Washington University at www.ewu.edu/qpr.

QPR Instructors Needed!
We increasingly receive requests for QPR training from around the country and, where possible, we route these requests to those of you geographically nearest the referral. Taking the idea from the State of Oregon, we would now like to move to the next level and simply list all the currently active QPR instructors and their contact information in the United States, by county, in an online map of the United States. Organizations with their own Web sites may simply link to this section of the QPR Institute’s Web site to facilitate in-state referrals for training.

To move this initiative along, and unless we hear an objection from you, we will assume we have your permission to post your name, agency, and contact information on the QPR Institute’s Web site. Please call our toll-free number if you do not want to be listed. Our Web site is being redesigned at this writing, and when the new site is up, this new map and instructor availability will be posted. Acceptance of a training request is entirely up to you, as is the amount you charge (if any) for teaching QPR.

American Association of Suicidology Conference, April 28th-May 1st, 2006

For those of you who plan to attend the AAS Conference this year, please plan on joining us for an informal reception, Saturday evening at the hotel. We would like to take the opportunity to meet all of you who are able to join us and thank you personally for the work that you do. An invitation with time and location will be sent to you prior to the conference.

• With the help from many peer reviews, we have written a major paper on QPR entitled, QPR Gatekeeper Training for Suicide Prevention: The Model, Rationale and Theory. This paper includes an update of our current research, historical development, and how QPR fits into the growing scientific literature on suicide prevention and brief health improvement interventions. Please let us know if you would like an advance copy. While unpublished for now, it may prove helpful in grant applications and, if you elect to cite it, please let us know.

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• By special arrangement with the Aberdeen Area Indian Health Service, a new Native American version of the QPR introductory video has been produced in DVD format. It is terrific! This DVD uses Native American speakers, symbols and music, and is intended to help raise awareness about suicide and its prevention in Native American communities, and to assist QPR Instructor’s training Native Americans with more “on-target” images to enhance program acceptance. We’re hoping to expand this customization project to other groups to achieve cultural competency in suicide prevention education. For a complimentary copy of this DVD please contact Kathy White, QPR National Coordinator at qinstitute@qwest.net.

Introduction and Background
One of the challenges in suicide prevention education is the number of Gatekeepers who must be trained in a defined community for them to be effective in their roles as observers of suicide warning signs. To expand and build on the success of face-to-face Gatekeeper training, our goal is to take advantage of Web technology and distance learning education to train more Gatekeepers by meeting their needs for greater access. This also allows us to meet the needs of the rural communities where a Certified Gatekeeper Instructor is not available.

Our research, to date, has shown equal gains in knowledge and high levels of reported satisfaction with both the classroom and online delivery of QPR training. Presently, we do not yet have definitive research on the value-added benefit of the role-play experience we have always recommended be conducted with participants if the time can be found to do so. The basic QPR plus a role-play experience usually takes from 90 minutes to two hours. We are conducting research on the effectiveness of the role-play dimension of the QPR training program.

Given our collective experience we are now recommending a role-play experience as part of QPR training wherever possible. A catalogue of role-plays has been provided to you on the Web site under QPR Instructor Resources. Note that QPR training, whether face-to-face or online, as presently taught, meets our current standards and requirements.

To expand our opportunities to teach QPR to those in remote or rural areas, to those with variable work schedules, or to organizations and businesses that cannot, for whatever reason, organize or support face-to-face training we are recommending the following QPR training options in order:

1. Standard face-to-face QPR training in the traditional, small group setting (1 hour) by a QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructor
2. Standard face-to-face QPR training in the traditional, small group setting, with structured role-play experience (90 minutes to 2 hours) with a QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructor
3. Individual self-paced online QPR training (1 hour to 90 minutes)
4. Individual self-paced online QPR training, with role-play experience provided via video conference or in a face-to-face small group setting. (90 minutes to 2 hours) with a QPR Certified Gatekeeper Instructor

Should Certified QPR Instructors elect to use a blend of online and face-to-face training for the role-play experience, including interactive video-conference technology or telephone conference call, the following two-phase training process is recommended:

Phase 1
Participants purchase or are provided access codes to the QPR online program and complete the training sequence (which includes the QPR Booklet and Card). Upon completion of all requirements, including passing the 15-item quiz, participants print two copies of their certificate, keeping one for their records. The second certificate is brought to the face-to-face session and given to the Certified QPR Instructor as proof of having successfully passed the knowledge portion of the QPR training program.

(Note: QPR Booklets and Cards can be sent in advance to QPR Certified Instructors who are working with online participants and these can be distributed to participants in Phase 2. The cost of the booklets and cards is included in the cost of the online course.)

Phase 2

• Certified QPR Instructors meet with participants who have passed the online portion of the training for not less than 45 minutes. This face-to-face session must include, but is not restricted to, the following:
• A brief outline of what will be accomplished in the meeting (2-3 minutes)
• An open discussion and Q&A of the participant’s experience of the online training program (5 minutes)
• A thorough review of local referral resources, emergency and crisis response systems, and hard-copy handouts, if available, of how to access services for persons detected by Gatekeepers to be at elevated risk for suicidal behaviors (5-10 minutes). This information will be needed in the role-play experience to follow.
• A role-play experience of not less than 20 minutes (10 minutes per person in both roles: distressed person and QPR Gatekeeper)
• Discussion of role-play experience (3-5 minutes after each role-play)