On March 5-6, a landmark meeting occurred between two groups
of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention (Action Alliance). Members
of the Suicide
Attempt Survivors Task Force (SAS TF) met with leaders of the Zero
Suicide Advisory Group (ZSAG) to discuss, in detail, how the values,
insight, and expertise of people with lived experience of suicide can create
better supports and services to reduce suicide for those in clinical care. Held
in San Francisco through the support of the Mental Health Association of San
Francisco, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline), the Suicide
Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Summit on Lived Experience in Suicide
Prevention may be the first time in history that a major national care
initiative such as Zero Suicide has
engaged with people ‘who have been there’ to strategize directions for
fostering healthier communities and preventing suicide death.
The Summit involved leadership from the Action Alliance’s
Executive Committee and Suicide Attempt Survivors Task Force, including John
Draper and Eduardo Vega, and the Zero Suicide Advisory Group, including David
Covington, CEO & President of Crisis Access, LLC, and Becky Stoll, Vice
President for Crisis and Disaster Management, Centerstone of America. Members
of the SAS TF from around the nation participated actively throughout the
Summit. Reflecting the Summit’s significance
and importance, Richard McKeon, SAMHSA’s Suicide Prevention Branch Chief, Jerry
Reed, Director of SPRC, and Sally
Spencer-Thomas, AAS board member and director of the innovative Carson J.
Spencer Foundation, were also active participants.
The meeting
of these two groups was one of intense dialogue and progress, and a true
spirit of mutual interest was fostered through discussion of each other’s work.
As Vega, co-lead for the SAS TF pointed
out, “Today we are a team. We are finding ways to support each other’s efforts
and bringing our energies and values into alignment. In doing so, we are
radically changing thinking about suicide prevention, setting the stage for
innovation that brings the expertise of attempt survivors into focus with that of
our healthcare providers.”
A major focus of the meeting was a pivotal technical
document “The Way Forward”, soon to be released by the SAS TF, which lays out
recommendations for policies, practices, and programs to support people
experiencing suicidal thoughts and feelings and for the engagement of people
with this ‘lived expertise’ in services and systems change. This document, in
development for over two years by SAS TF members, builds on the 2012 National Strategy on Suicide Prevention
and provides a core values framework that advances the conversation. Bringing its recommendations into focus with
the priorities of Zero Suicide is a bold concrete step for change in the way
services and providers think about prevention of suicide. As Covington, co-lead
of the ZSAG, remarked, “Wherever Zero Suicide is developed, we need lived
expertise to be ‘baked in, not bolted on’ to the project.”
Draper, director of the Lifeline, who brings his leadership
to both the SAS TF and ZSAG, outlined the value of the collaboration directly: "'Zero
Suicide' is a goal that we can aspire to only if clinicians and persons who
have a history of suicidal thoughts or actions collaborate in ways that enable
choice, trust, and shared responsibility. This meeting was a perfect model for
the kind of collaboration that will build connectedness, hope, and meaning for
persons seeking help for suicidal thoughts in clinical systems of care."
In addition to strategic directions for collaboration and
support, summit attendees discussed crucial issues related to the field of
suicide prevention, including: risk, community intervention practices, stigma
and prejudice, and other historical challenges to progress. For example, although
mental health service providers have developed extensive dialogue with their
service ‘consumers’ over many years, and lived expertise in the area has
resulted in many new and transformed programs, the suicide prevention community
has historically had very limited dialogue with people with lived experience of
suicidality. This history of disengagement was broached openly.
