Mission

The QPR mission is to save lives and reduce suicidal behaviors by providing innovative, practical and proven suicide prevention training. We believe that quality education empowers all people, regardless of their background, to make a positive difference in the life of someone they know.

What is the QPR Institute?

The QPR Institute is a multidisciplinary training organization whose primary goal is to provide suicide prevention educational services and materials to professionals and the general public. We offer state-of-the-art programs to institutions that want to increase their standard of care and reduce the suicide rate.

How did the QPR Institute get started?

Following a productive, three-year joint effort between Spokane Mental Health and the founder to launch a national suicide prevention training program, the Institute became an independent organization in July of 1999. In the early and developmental years, the QPR concept and associated training program that eventually lead to the founding of the Institute enjoyed considerable support and input from a wide variety of organizations and professional colleagues.

We wish to acknowledge Spokane Mental Health for their participation, funding and support, and also:

  • The Washington Institute for Mental Illness Research and Training
  • The State of Washington Department of Health
  • The Spokane County Health Department
  • The Intercollegiant School for Nursing Education
  • Sacred Heart Medical Center
  • Eastern Washington University School of Social Work

and many other fine organizations who have contributed ideas, staff time, research consultation and data collection services to our shared mission of suicide prevention.

For moral support in the early going, we especially wish to honor, thank and recognize two groups of very special people who share our vision and mission. Both grassroots survivor of suicide organizations, Suicide Awareness\Voices of Eduction (SA\VE) and the Suicide Prevention Advocacy Network (SPAN USA) provided that all essential spark of encouragement that keeps hope alive and all of us working even harder to bring about the reality of preventing suicide.

We also wish to thank members of the American Association of Suicidology for their contributions to the ideas, research and development of our suicide risk reduction tools and protocols.

Where is the QPR Institute going?

The QPR Institute has developed a comprehensive series of both professional and lay training programs to help prevent suicide. These programs cover the spectrum of awareness raising and primary prevention, to intervention and suicide risk assessment, as well as training in postvention in the aftermath of suicide and other trauma. Ours is a systems approach and based on the premise that everyone needs suicide prevention training. We are helping others all across the USA and beyond to implement public health oriented suicide prevention programs in their schools, universities, hospitals and communities. We currently have more than 2500 Certified QPR Instructors in more than 48 states, Australia and China.

For the professional, we have written, researched and field-tested award-winning suicide risk assessment tools and methodologies to be used in health care organizations. These tools and protocols have received positive evaluations both by the professionals who use them, as well as by the suicidal people who experience the risk assessment evaluation. The QPR Institute Suicide Risk Reduction Program has recently been profiled as an example of "best practices" by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations in their 1999 publications, Preventing Adverse Events in Behavioral Health Care and Preventing Patient Suicide.

We are now reaching out to professional and healthcare organizations, as well as training institutions who prepare clinical providers, to better prepare all of us to help suicidal people not only survive their current crisis, but to benefit from the treatment that we all know saves lives.

Paul Quinnett, Ph.D., Founder and CEO
A clinical psychologist and trainer for more than 35 years, Dr. Quinnett developed and managed a suicide prevention hotline, an emergency services department, and a dozen mental health service delivery programs. He has authored seven books, many professional articles and book chapters. He was Director of Training for the Spokane Mental Health APA-approved psychology internship program for more than 20 years and has served on board of the American Association of Suicidology. He was a founding board member of two national suicide prevention organizations: The Kristin Brooks Hope Center (1-800-SUICIDE), and The Suicide Prevention Action Network. Heavily involved in the training of mental health professionals, he currently serves as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of Washington School of Medicine. To help prevent suicide, he donated the French and English electronic editions of his bestseller, Suicide: the Forever Decision to the world in 2005 via the World Wide Web.


Richard K. Ries, MD, Medical Director
Dr. Richard Ries is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington Medical School in Seattle, Washington. He is board certified in Psychiatry and certified in Addiction Medicine by the American Society for Addiction Medicine, and in Addiction Psychiatry (1993) by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Ries is Director of Outpatient Psychiatry, Dual Disorder Programs, and the Chemical Dependency Project at Harborview Medical Center. He is director of substance abuse education at the University of Washington Medical School and director of the Division of Addictions for the Department of Psychiatry. He has obtained NIDA sponsored clinical research grants in 1989 and 1997 to evaluate treatment outcome in dual disorders and also helped develop and participate in a NIDA sponsored training videotape (1996) on dual disorders.

Dr. Ries was chosen to chair the first official Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP#9-1994) on dual disorders by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. In 1999 he became co-editor of the key reference text Principles of Addiction Medicine, published by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He is heavily involved in clinical research and in teaching and training physicians about the role of substance abuse and mood disorders in suicide.

Brian Quinnett, M.S., National Training Director and QPR Master Trainer
Brian current duties include the recruitment, selection, training, coordination, credentialing and supervision of advanced QPR program instructors and master trainers. He also manages the Institute’s university CEU web-based suicide prevention educational programs for professionals and serves as a consultant to organizations seeking to implement suicide risk reduction practices.

Also the Institute’s Web master, Brian returned to campus after playing professional basketball for three years with the New York Knicks and earned a masters degree in Sports Psychology and Counseling from the University of Idaho. He worked in the business world for several years before joining the Institute. His special area of interest, speaking, and writing is preventing suicide among student athletes.

Paul LeBuffe, M.S. Master QPR Trainer
Paul LeBuffe is the Director of the Devereux Foundation's Institute of Clinical Training and Research. At Devereux, Paul co-chaired (with Susan Kiesling) a multidisciplinary best practices work group which developed a comprehensive agency-wide suicide risk reduction program. Through this program he became involved with the QPR Institute. Devereux trained over 5,000 staff in QPR and over 700 clinicians in QPRT.

In addition to suicide prevention education, Paul's professional interests include the measurement and promotion of resilience in young children, psychometrics and test development, and treatment outcome evaluation in behavioral health care. He has authored three behavior rating scales that are widely used in the behavioral health care and child development fields. He is active in a number of professional and community organizations concerned with young children and individuals with developmental and psychiatric disorders. Paul and his family live in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Ben Camp, M.S.Ed., QPR Master Trainer
Ben Camp has half-time faculty appointment with the School of Social Work at Eastern Washington University where he teaches suicide prevention courses to undergraduate and graduate students. Ben has more than 25 years of experience in the fields of mental health and substance abuse. He has been involved in all levels of care: direct counseling, program development and management, grant development and evaluation, college curriculum development, teaching, and training.

Ben has been a Mental Health Crisis and Commitment Specialist responsible for the assessment and involuntary commitment of suicidal persons and Director of Training for a Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Program. He has consulted for the Washington Institute for Mental Illness Research and Training and has advanced training in suicide risk assessment and management. He has also been the principle researcher/author for the Washington State Mental Health Division and Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse grant to develop a model curriculum for Co-Occurring Disorders Case Management and has provided training on Co-Occurring Disorders throughout Washington State, the region and nationally.

Skip Simpson, B.A., J.D. Risk Management Instructor

With a legal background ranging from duties as a U.S. Air Force Courts Martial Judge to services as Texas' top drug traffic prosecutor, Skip Simpson has created a private law practice in the area psychiatric and psychological malpractice. Profiled in the Wall Street Journal in 1997 for his pioneering work in suicide litigation, Mr. Simpson has been nationally recognized for his expertise in suicide and repressed memory cases. His work has been profiled in C.C. Risenhoover’s book The Suicide Lawyers: Exposing Lethal Secrets.

Unlike mental health experts, Mr. Simpson’s work obliges him to look at suicide from every possible angle in preparing a case, and he has to make his findings easily understandable to a jury. As a leading attorney in the mental health field, in 2003 Mr. Simpson received an academic appointment as a senior fellow, Harvard Medical School Program in Psychiatry and the Law at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Boston, Massachusetts. He was also appointed Clinical Instructor at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas, and in 2006 was promoted to Adjunct Associate Professor. In these roles, Mr. Simpson teaches medical residents subjects focusing on psychiatry and the law. In 2005 Mr. Simpson was named to the board of directors for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Collin County where he served for a one year term.

Robert Robey, QPR Master Trainer
Bob Robey served for more than 20 years as a bereavement counselor for the Hospice in Owensboro, Kentucky where he still facilitates a suicide survivor’s support group. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in business and education from Kentucky Wesleyan College. Bob has presented the QPR suicide prevention model for the Kentucky Psychological Association, The Mental Health Institute of Kentucky, the Kentucky Center for Safe Schools and Western Kentucky University. Bob provided the leadership in bringing QPR to the state of Kentucky.

As a QPR Master Trainer, Bob has trained QPR Instructors throughout the US Air Force, Army and National Guard. He has also trained QPR Instructors for several Indian Health Services organizations and on a number of Native American Reservations. Bob is also a survivor of suicide, having lost a close friend to suicide ten years ago, which was the catalyst to his working with other survivors and in prevention.

Kerry Hope, Ph.D., QPR Master Trainer
Dr. Hope is currently the Suicide Prevention Coordinator at the Student Counseling Services at Texas A&M university. Dr. Hope completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Texas A&M University and is a licensed psychologist. Her areas of special interest include crisis intervention and suicide prevention, as well as issues of diversity, Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual issues, Women’s issues, eating disorders and supervision and training.

Kerry trains both QPR Instructors and teaches the QPR Suicide Triage program and QPRT Suicide Risk Management Inventory courses. As a QPR Master Trainer she has been busy training leadership, chaplains and clinical professionals in the U.S. Army and at many colleges and universities.

Mary Bolin-Reece, Ph.D. QPR Master Trainer
Dr. Bolin-Reese is currently the Director of the University of Kentucky Counseling & Testing Center in Lexington, Kentucky. She is primary responsible for day-to-day oversight of services provided by a staff of nine psychologists, one learning skills specialist, one administrative officer, three support personnel, and several doctoral-level trainees. She completed her internship and served as Interim Administrative Director the Needs and Evaluation Center at the University of Virginia, where she also provided leadership to as Coordinator of Clinical and Crisis Services for the University.

Currently Mary serves on the Kentucky Suicide Prevention Group (KSPG), the Stop Youth Suicide Campaign (SYS), and coordinates QPR gatekeeper trainings for University of Kentucky faculty, staff and students. She has a wide range of interests, including suicide prevention both on college campuses and in the community.

Donna Barns, Ph.D., QPR Master Trainer
Donna Holland Barnes, Ph.D. is co-founder and President of the National Organization for People of Color against Suicide (NOPCAS) and a founding member of the National Council for Suicide Prevention (NCSP). She has served on several national and local committees that pertained to suicidal behavior and appears on radio talk shows and in national magazines frequently on the subject of suicide.

She sits on the board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The Organization for Attempters and Survivors of Suicide in Interfaith Services (OASSIS). Donna is also a Research Assistant Professor at Howard University's Psychiatry Department in Washington, D.C. where she teaches suicide risk management to residents and third year medical students and conducts research on families who have lost someone to suicide. She is also working with bipolar patients on a collaborative genetics study with a research team in the department of psychiatry.

Mark Besen, Ph.D., Advanced Clinical Trainer

Dr. Besen is currently the Vice President of Clinical Services for Cape Counseling in Cape May County, New Jersey. A clinical psychologist and senior administrator in community mental health for fifteen years, Dr. Besen has been involved in direct service, agency operations and policy development for at-risk children and adults across a full continuum of emergency, outpatient, inpatient and residential behavioral health services.

Dr. Besen, along with Dr. Quinnett, was responsible for overseeing the first installation of QPR and QPRT in a community mental health agency. This project resulted in Spokane Mental Health receiving the prestigious Negley award for excellence in risk reduction practice in 1998. Since that time Dr. Besen has been responsible for installing QPR and QPRT in two additional large community behavioral health agencies. A prolific speaker and trainer, he has conducted workshops at local, state and national levels and has provided consultation to a variety of behavioral health related agencies. Dr. Besen received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Hahnemann University in 1992. He has maintained faculty appointments at Hahnemann University, The Washington Institute for Mental Illness Research and Training, and The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. In addition to his background with QPR/T, Dr. Besen’s areas of specialty include psychiatric rehabilitation for persons with severe and persistent mental illness, cognitive therapy approaches for persons with Axis II pathology and treatment of co-occurring substance use and other psychiatric disorders.

Lt. Colonel Charles E. Woods, M.A., M.Div., QPR Master Trainer
Colonel Woods is an officer in the United States Air Force, assigned as the Commandant of the Academy for Innovative Ministry for the National Guard. He is responsible for developing, designing, and instructing curriculum on crisis intervention, suicide intervention, workplace violence, deployment ministry, and family support for all National Guard Personnel. He is a professional with more than 30 years of experience in the fields of mental health and substance abuse.A

Colonel Woods also serves as the Chief for Crisis Intervention, providing Crisis Intervention policy, guidance, training, and support for personnel assigned to National Guard units in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. He is a certified instructor for nine different Critical Incident Stress Management courses, and is responsible for training and mobilizing Traumatic Stress Response Teams to provide assistance during times of national crisis. His duties include responding to mass fatalities, natural disasters, suicides, weapons of mass destruction, and acts of terrorism. In 2001 he served at the Pentagon as the chief of crisis operations, overseeing eight operational sites responding to the Pentagon Attack of September 11, 2001.

Dell Hackett, QPR Master Trainer, Law Enforcement Advisor
Dell Hackett is a retired lieutenant with the Lane County Sheriff’s Office in Eugene, Oregon. He is currently President of the Law Enforcement Wellness Association a training and consulting organization dedicated to the physical and psychological health of our nation’s law enforcement personnel. During his years of service he held several different assignments including command responsibility over his department’s special operations and training sections, including SWAT, Air Operations, Search and Rescue and Emergency Services. In addition to a Bachelor of Arts in Management, he is a member of the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, and a Diplomat member of the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress and the American Board of Law Enforcement Experts. He also graduated from the prestigious FBI National Academy, session 182.

Long interested in preventing suicide among the ranks of law enforcement, he has become a QPR Institute Master Trainer. In addition to other articles and chapters published in a variety of law enforcement areas, Dell is the co-author of the new book, Police Suicide: Tactics for Prevention and Intervention, with Dr. John Violanti.

Sung Pil Yook, Ph.D. QPR Master Trainer (Korea)
Dr. Yook completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Korea University in Seoul, Korea. He learned about QPR while on a post-doctoral fellowship in suicide prevention at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He completed his advanced QPR training in the United States and in Korea. Dr. Yook has provided consultation and training to police departments throughout Korea and is the suicide prevention advisor to the Republic of Korea National Defense Ministry.

Dr. Yook’s research and writing interests are in military and police stress, personality measurement, and suicide prevention. He has translated QPR and two of Dr. Quinnett’s books into Korean and is opening QPR-Korea.

Hyesun Lee, QPR Master Trainer (Korea)
Hyesun Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in Clinical Psychology in Korea University. She completed her advanced QPR training in the United States and in Korea. She has translated QPR program and Dr. Quinnett’s books into Korean. Dr. Yook and she are opening the Suicide Prevention Center in Korea University and plan to disseminate QPR in Korea.

She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She is working at the Student Counseling Center in Korea University as a researcher and counselor. She has interested in marital problem and crisis intervention.

Elmer (Lee) Washington, MD, MPH, Advanced Clinical Trainer
Dr. Washington is presently the Medical Director of Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Practice and completed his post graduate training at Georgetown/Providence Family Practice Residency. He completed his undergraduate training at Northwestern University and also earned a Masters in Public Health at Northwester University Medical School.

Dr. Washington supervises and trains staff in a variety of medical settings at the agency’s Community Health Center sites. He also provides leadership for expansion efforts, quality improvement initiatives (including Joint Commission), and collaborative activities with internal and external stakeholders. He completed the QPR Institute’s advanced training program in suicide risk detection, assessment and management and now teaches this knowledge and skills to medical professionals in the Chicago area.

Kevin Bratcher, M.S., Co-Author of the QPRT Risk Management System and Advanced Clinical Trainer
Kevin Bratcher, M.S. has over 19 years experience in suicide prevention, intervention and training. As a clinical treatment provider for both adults and adolescents, he developed and co-authored the QPRT Suicide Risk Management System. Mr. Bratcher’s administrative experience includes work as a Quality Improvement Manager and Behavioral Health Service Clinic Coordinator in large public and private sector mental health agencies. His has provided clinical services on both an outpatient and inpatient basis.

Kevin remains an active trainer, consultant and advocate for improving the national standard of care as it relates to suicide risk assessment and risk management. His energy over the course of the last six years has been focused on managing suicide risk from an administrative and systemic perspective within large healthcare organizations. He has trained hundreds of mental health professionals to improve their clinical assessment and suicide risk management skills both in professional seminars and university programs throughout the United States. Away from his work, Kevin enjoys time with his family camping and fishing in the Pacific Northwest.

Lou Sowers, Ph.D., MBA, Advanced Clinical Trainer
Dr. Lou Sowers is the Director of Youth, Adult, and Family Treatment Services at Spokane Mental Health (SMH); the Chief Psychologist for SMH’s American Psychological Association accredited Psychology Internship Training Program, and a consulting police psychologist and suicidologist. He is the co-author of the QPRT-P Pediatric Suicide Risk Management Inventory and User's Manual.

Lou has over 25 years experience working with children, adults and families in a wide range of clinical and educational settings. Lou provides extensive training and supervision to clinical staff, psychology interns, and psychiatric residents on matters related to mental disorders and suicide risk assessment, management and prevention. He completed his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Southern California.

In addition to serving on the QPR Institute faculty, Lou is or has been an active member of the American Association of Suicidology, the American Psychological Association, the Washington State Psychological Association, and the Society of Police and Criminal Psychology. He also serves as a board member for Students Mastering Important Life-skills Education, as a site visitor for the APA, and as a board member for the Spokane Suicide Prevention Coalition. In his spare time he enjoys the great outdoors, fishing and spending time with his family.

James States, M.D. Consultant/Faculty Member
Dr. James States is the medical director of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, a corporation dedicated to improving the health of adolescents, young adults and their families through clinical methods and community education.. As a faculty member of the QPR Institute, Dr. States trains physicians and other primary care providers in suicide risk assessment and both the clinical and psychological management of patients at risk of self-destruction. He is a widely regarded lecturer and educator throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Dr. States graduated from Temple University Medical School in 1971, completed his internship at Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, Washington, and was board certified by the American Academy of Family Practice in 1978. He completed post-graduate fellowship training in Adolescent Medicine at the University of Southern California, and in 1978 established the only multidisciplinary private practice in the Northwestern United States dedicated to the treatment of adolescents and young adults. An internationally known climber, Dr. States has climbed many of the world's tallest peaks and was the 17th American to scale Mt. Everest.

Sergio Perez, M.D., Advisor Latin America
Dr. Sergio Perez Barrero is a clinical psychiatrist and the Founder of Suicidology Section of World Psychiatry Association and also Founder of World Suicidology Net. He is WHO and PAHO temporal advisor. Author of nine books about suicide prevention , he is also Clinical Titular Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Granma, Cuba. In addition to directing a large, public sector mental health program for adolescent, adults and elders, he maintained a public practice in primary care for 25 years. His primary interests are teach volunteers in preventing suicide and management of suicidal crisis for family, general practitioners, young psichiatrists and all people interested in this theme. He has been invited speaker in Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica , Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Peru, Mexico and Cuba.

Rebecca Cardell, DNSc, ARNP, Advanced Clinical Trainer
Dr. Cardell is an Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner and a nurse suicidologist who has conducted research on the assessment and treatment of suicidal inpatients and published these findings in professional journals for the past ten years. She has served as an expert witness in legal cases involving hospital suicides and was a reviewer for the Joint Commission's book, Preventing Patient Suicide.

A clinician and professor at Washington State University, during her doctoral work at Rush University in Chicago she specialized in suicide prevention and intervention for inpatients. She served on the faculty of Washington State University's College of Nursing for ten years and taught suicide assessment and prevention to nurses for several years. She is a co-author of the QPRT-H: Suicide Risk Management Inventory for Hospitals, an Institute publication.

Scott Eliason, M.D., Advanced Clinical Trainer
Dr. Scott Eliason is a recent graduate from the University of Washington Psychiatry residency where he was chief resident. He is currently doing a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco and has a special interest in suicide prevention.

He graduated from Brigham Young University and then from the Medical College of Wisconsin. He spent two years as a missionary in Santiago Chile.

Matthew Schumacher, MA, Advanced Clinical Trainer
Matthew Schumacher, MA is a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at Northern Illinois University, and an adjunct professor of psychology at Aurora University. He is an active suicidologist with numerous publications and scholarly presentations and teaches on course, etiology and treatment of suicidality, mood and psychotic disorders. He is student representative to the Council of Delegates of the American Association of Suicidology.

Matthew received BA/MA degrees from the University of Chicago where he played football and was captain of the track & field team. From 2000-2003 he was clinical research manager of the Bipolar Disorders Clinic at Stanford School of Medicine, where he contributed to research projects in the neurobiology, etiology and treatment of bipolar disorders. He was also a clinical specialist in the NIMH funded Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorders (STEP-BD), received specialty training in Family Focused Therapy, and was a junior investigator on the STEP-BD family impact study. He conducts research on the prevalence and etiology of bipolar spectrum psychopathology and suicidality with a particular emphasis on asolecents and young adults.


Aaron Baker, Psy.D., Advanced Clinical Trainer/Research Advisor
Aaron Baker, Psy.D. received his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Pacific University in 2007. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Seasonality of Suicide: An Analysis of Florida and North Carolina Suicides and Unemployment." He is a member of the American Psychological Association and the American Association of Suicidology.
Marci Burroughs, Ph.D. QPR Master Trainer
Dr. Burroughs is currently the Associate Director/Director of Clinical Services at the University of Tennessee Counseling Center. Dr. Burroughs completed her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at the University of Southern Mississippi and interned at the University of Tennessee Counseling Center. Marci is a Licensed Psychologist/Health Service Provider in Tennessee and an Adjunct, Assistant Professor for the Counseling Psychology Department at UT. Marci has a faculty appointment with the QPR Institute and is certified as a QPR Master Trainer. She is the Co-Coordinator of VolAware, the University of Tennessee’s Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Awareness committee. She coordinates the use of QPR at UT including the training of Gatekeeper Instructors and the gatekeeper trainings provided to faculty, staff and students as well as to the Knoxville community. Marci is on the Steering Committee for the Association for the Coordination of Counseling Center Clinical Services (ACCCCS).