The QPR Institute offers comprehensive suicide prevention training programs, educational and clinical materials for the general public, professionals, and institutions.

QPR Institute 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:

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.