This is a full-day training and includes breakfast and a light lunch.

AMSR’s research-informed risk formulation model helps health and behavioral health professionals feel confident navigating challenging conversations and offers key strategies for providing compassionate care to people at risk for suicide. Authorized expert trainers lead the one-day AMSR training, teaching professionals essential skills through videos, live demonstrations, and paired and written practice.

This is a 90-minute training.

Like CPR, QPR is an emergency response to someone in crisis and can save lives. QPR is the most widely taught Gatekeeper training in the world.

This is a 4-hour training.

LivingWorks safeTALK is a four-hour training that equips people to be more alert to someone thinking of suicide and better able to connect them with further help. You will learn how to reach out to someone thinking about suicide and help them keep safe by using a simple and effective model and promptly connecting them to further support.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions, 3 breakfasts, 3 lunches, and beverages. Includes Thursday Evening Reception.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and beverages. Includes Thursday Evening Reception.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and beverages. Includes Thursday Evening Reception.

A current student ID card is required at check-in for this option.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions, 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and beverages. Includes Thursday Evening Reception.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, beverages, and Thursday Evening Reception.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, beverages, and Thursday Evening Reception.

A current student ID card is required at check-in for this option.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, beverages, and Thursday Evening Reception.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

A current student ID card is required at check-in for this option.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

A current student ID card is required at check-in for this option.

Conference registration provides you with a program bag and conference packet, admission to all keynote presentations and breakout sessions. Includes breakfast, lunch, and beverages.

Meditation can be an effective tool for self-care and stress management, increasing your ability to be present and live in the moment. And when we can learn to sustain being more present in our daily lives, we can have more power and agency to create growth opportunities, positive change and solutions not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of those we serve and our greater community. Experience a peaceful and restorative guided meditation to lead you towards a calmer mind and more present and focused state of being.

Meditation can be an effective tool for self-care and stress management, increasing your ability to be present and live in the moment. And when we can learn to sustain being more present in our daily lives, we can have more power and agency to create growth opportunities, positive change and solutions not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of those we serve and our greater community. Experience a peaceful and restorative guided meditation to lead you towards a calmer mind and more present and focused state of being.

Included in Thursday Only, 2-Day, and 3-Day Tickets. Select Yes or No to confirm attendance.

Includes dinner and entertainment by the University of Michigan Musical Theater.

Our SCECH sponsor, Macomb Intermediate School District, requires this form for reviewing and uploading your credits into your account.

Hopelessness is the single consistent predictor of suicide, and primary symptom of anxiety and depression. Yet we are never taught what it is, and how to get to hope. Hope is measurable, and teachable. During this talk, you'll learn about a global movement for hope, through Hopeful Cities, Hopeful Minds, and Hopeful Mindsets, and know how to measure, and improve your hope, using the SHINE Hope framework.

This session will provide educators with practical tips for having conversations with students that create a sense of connection and belonging, even in the face of struggle. You will learn a conversation framework, as well as the specific words that you can use to provide guidance and support in a way that is safe, structured, and supportive. You will leave with strategies to up-skill the rest of your team, and increased confidence to support all the students in your school community.

This presentation will discuss sociocultural risk factors associated with self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among Latinx youth. Culturally-relevant factors include acculturative stress and acculturation gaps, and structural level risk factors include racism (i.e., interpersonal and systemic), racial trauma, and discrimination/racial microaggressions. Given the importance of using a resilience framework when working with diverse and minoritized community members struggling with self-injury and suicide we will also discuss culturally-relevant protective processes that can buffer these system level risk factors, like discussing the importance of strong racial/ethnic identity and civic engagement, and collective healing practices. This presentation will end with a discussion of current structural and sociocultural barriers to care and will also facilitate a conversation about possible multi-level solutions that can help equitable suicide interventions move forward.

Mason Englert completed his first Major League season with the Tigers in 2023, appearing in 31 games, including one start, and posting a 4-3 record with a 5.46 ERA and 41 strikeouts. A native of Forney, TX, Englert resides in Grand Rapids in the offseason.

Attendees will take a look at how trauma and toxic stress affect youth. This will include effects on learning, relationships, and mental health.

Responding effectively to the needs of the school community after a suicidal crisis is critical. This session will look at effective postvention through the lens of facilitating discussions about a student’s thoughts, reactions, emotions and feelings following the suicide death of a classmate.

Behavior is communication and for our youngest learners communication can be challenging. Every child is developing and learning at a different pace, which is a good thing! Unfortunately, in our society, even our youngest learners feel unnecessary pressure to be the best in the world. What we really need to do is help them be the best for the world. We will discuss different ways to help children communicate feelings in a variety of ways.

The presentation will highlight the engagement of C.S. Mott Children's Hopsital's engagement in building a Zero Suicide Framework for its suicide prevention and care in the emergency room and inpatient settings. This is part of a 16-site collaborative support by Cardinal Health, the Children's Hospital Association and the Zero Suicide Institute. It will review the initial organizational self study and gap analysis, workforce survey data, lead team and steering committee structure, as well as the progress made over the first 18-months in building interventions and activities across the seven elements of the Zero Suicide Framework.

QPR, Question. Persuade. Refer. Is a one-hour presentation that covers three steps anyone can learn to help prevent suicide. Just like, CPR, QPR is an emergency response to someone in crisis and can save lives. Throughout the presentation, we will look see how we can apply QPR to early childhood. What are signs, what might we see, and or hear.

Young people are in crisis – and teen girls are particularly at risk. A recent U.S. Centers for Prevention and Disease Control report found nearly three in five teen girls felt persistently sad in 2021, double the rate of teen boys.

The Miles Jeffrey Roberts Foundation is excited to share the MJRF Mental Health Champions Program with Kevin’s Song. This mental health initiative is intended to be transformative in approach for engaging youth athletes through trusted adults, specifically coaches, trainers and other professionals within the Athletic Department. Topics will include MJRF history, our Pilot program through Skyline High School (AAPS), details about our community engagement, and our future growth.

This panel will explore how to prevent suicide by providing gender affirming care. What exactly is gender affirming care? How does anti-LGBTQ legislation impact the mental health of LGBTQ folx? What can schools and professionals do to understand and support the needs of trans people? Hear from an endocrinologist, a psychologist, and an attorney to get these and many other questions answered in this lively discussion.

The Jordan Elizabeth Harris Foundation will share its approach to Hope Squad, a nationally-recognized peer-to-peer suicide prevention program with practical advice for implementation and culture change over time with school-based settings.

Rates of suicide ideation and attempts for youth remain high in the United States and there is a lack of evidence-based treatment for suicide risk for adolescents. The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) treatment framework aims to help suicidal patients manage suicide thoughts and behaviors on an outpatient basis as much as possible, while also addressing individualized drivers of suicide as a focus of treatment and learning alternate ways of coping. The Suicide Status Form (SSF), which guides the treatment process through assessment, treatment planning, and stabilization planning, has been validated for adolescents ages 12-17 (Brausch et al., 2021). An NIMH-funded randomized clinical trial is currently underway to evaluate the effectiveness of CAMS-4Teens. The workshop presenter will provide an overview of the CAMS Framework®, its evidence base for decreasing suicide ideation and increasing hope in both adults and adolescents, and specific strategies for implementing CAMS in school settings.

During this session, Sacred Bundle Program staff will discuss the unique challenges faced by youth, especially those in tribal communities, in accessing mental health services. Topics such as cultural normalcy, youth centered prevention, and discussing ways to integrate traditional healing practices will be covered in the session. The Sacred Bundle Project remains committed to expanding resources and trainings for tribal communities and other underserved populations across the State of Michigan. 

In 2021, Suicide was the third leading cause of deaths among adolescents aged 15–19 years and second leading cause of death for ages 10-14 (CDC). Evaluation and management of youth with suicidal ideation and behaviors starts with a thorough risk assessment and requires a combination of medical, social, community and psychiatric interventions depending upon the seriousness of their intent, their underlying risk factors, and their individual support system.

Firearms accounted for 55% of American suicide deaths in 2022 and, with over 400 million privately owned firearms in circulation, a meaningful portion of the US population remains at environmental risk for suicide. Unfortunately, those most likely to die by suicide using a firearm are less likely to engage with mental healthcare and their risk remains unknown until it is too late. In this presentation, Dr. Anestis will discuss how the broad implementation of secure firearm storage may represent the single most powerful suicide prevention tool at our disposal and how a combinations of approaches may help shift social norms around firearm storage in communities otherwise likely to store their firearms more dangerously.

Mass shooters often display behaviors that strongly mirror the warning signs for suicide: lives led in isolation, intense personal suffering, disaffection, and struggle. A range of behaviors such as murder-suicide, terrorism, and mass shootings are better understood as motivated by suicidal impulses than by homicidal ones.

Thomas Joiner offers a unified theory of suicide, making the case that many acts that appear homicidal are best understood primarily as suicidal. We must recognize that there are several forms of suicidal violence, some of which masquerade as other types of acts, including terrorism and murder. These include suicide-by-cop, suicide terrorism, murder-suicide, and running amok. Though there are obvious differences among these acts, Joiner argues that framing them as stemming from a common ideology of suicide is a crucial step in preventing these atrocities.

By recognizing the desire to die?not to kill?as being at the heart of many of the acts of those who choose violence against others, we can offer more effective measures of intervention.

Suicide Prevention in the State of Michigan panel discussion with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Michigan Suicide Prevention Commission. Moderated by Michael Pyne of HealthWest.

This will be an interactive experience between the presenter and the audience focusing on the mitigation of risk (as opposed to assessing for it). The target will be on not only the alternatives to hospitalization (often with better data supporting them than inpatient stays) but also the ethical considerations that concerned stakeholders must navigate when undergoing this mission!

In 2021, Hope Network was awarded a five-year grant from SAMHSA to implement the Zero Suicide Model throughout Hope Network across the State of Michigan to raise awareness and improve care and outcomes for individuals who are at risk for suicide. This is being accomplished by enhancing behavioral health services, focusing on suicide reduction, through professional development; increasing consistent, uniform screening and referral; and improving level of care in residential, crisis residential and outpatient programs through implementation of evidence-based practices. Throughout this presentation, two members of the Zero Suicide Leadership Team with lived experience will highlight activities implemented including program workflows, key metrics and clinical outcomes, evidence-based practices, and lessons learned through this initiative.

How do world events, near and far, impact our ability to compassionately treat a suicidal individual? What does it mean for the suicidal person and the clinician? This presentation covers various aspects of compassion fatigue, training deficiencies, and the impact of adverse world events on mental health treatment resulting in sending individuals to the emergency room prematurely.

This session outlines stigma related to mental illness, highlighting the mainstream media influences that can have a tremendous impact on an individual’s well-being and suicidal ideation. The conversation explores the shortcomings of current stigma reduction approaches, discussing the role of mental health practitioners and advocates. Exploration of this topic aims to systematically review lessons and interventions to better understand crucial elements to create change. 

This presentation will focus on the learning health system (LHS) as an approach to integrating clinical care and research in bipolar disorder. It will include a description of the LHS as well as an update on the current status of research in bipolar disorder

In his interpersonal theory of suicidal behavior, Thomas Joiner proposes three factors that mark those most at risk of death: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, perhaps chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself. He tests the theory against diverse facts taken from clinical anecdotes, history, literature, popular culture, anthropology, epidemiology, genetics, and neurobiology--facts about suicide rates among men and women; white and African-American men; anorexics, athletes, prostitutes, and physicians; members of cults, sports fans, and citizens of nations in crisis. 

Postvention is the collaborative approach to provide support and resources to any person impacted by a suicide loss with the ultimate goals of addressing the healing process, mitigating any felt negative effects, and preventing additional suicides. It has been found that those who have participated in an active postvention model receive mental health services sooner (an average of 45 days vs. 4.5 years), are more likely to attend support groups, attend support groups more often, and have a decrease in suicidality. Additionally, providing active postvention may be cost-effective in terms of psychological treatment for suicide loss survivors. But how does a community develop an effective postvention program? This presentation will detail the process and strategies taken in Milwaukee, WI to lay the foundation of an active postvention model within an urban, culturally diverse community. Aims of this program include conducting direct outreach to survivors of suicide loss to determine needs and provide local resources, identifying gaps in community services, developing a targeted resource guide, and determining feasibility of an expanded community based postvention program. Attendees will gain a thorough understanding of what is needed to initiate and implement a successful program within their own community to promote healing and reduce suicides, including strategies to address equitable access. In addition, attendees will view examples of resources and program materials that they can replicate in their own programming.

Presenters will provide participants with information about the Zero Suicide model, and what implementation of this model looks like in a clinical setting. We will talk through the importance of lethal means reduction, cultural competency of clinicians, and specific modalities, such as CAMS, for use in suicide prevention clinical practice as examples of best practice in suicide care. Presenters will discuss the impact of being a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC), and how access to care saves lives. As well, this presentation will demonstrate the impact of Zero Suicide and best practice implementation through the sharing out outcomes.

Legal liability for mental health providers after a suicide loss.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an evidence-based trauma therapy that can be used effectively to treat clients who have parts of them that want to die to escape emotional pain. Most client's come to us with polarities-a part of them is coming for help, while another part is hopeless and feels checking out is the only option. Shaming these parts, ignoring them or doing no-harm contracts is not effective.

In IFS, we welcome all parts, get to know them and offer alternative ways to heal younger wounded parts. Letting suicidal parts know there is another way.

The purpose of this presentation is to explore strategies for providing comprehensive services in the aftermath of a suicide crisis or attempt in various levels of care. By emphasizing integration and collaboration, the objective to is provide healthcare professionals with the tools and knowledge needed to effectively navigate individuals through the care transition process.

The churches are forever trying to save the soul and psychology is always trying to fix the soul. But the soul needs neither to be saved nor fixed. It needs to be listened to! Its cries need to be heard. Are these unheard cries of the soul the reason for many suicides?

The power of storytelling and personal narrative: examining one suicide attempt survivor’s path from suicide risk to suicide resilience.

Healing after a suicide loss is a lifelong journey. In this presentation, La Toya Bond shares her deeply personal story of tragic loss, grief, resilience, hope, and love. This presentation will offer information on how the power of love can help heal the hearts of individuals who have lost a loved one to suicide.

Barb Smith will walk the participants through the many emotions left behind after a loss to suicide. Understanding that suicide grief is unique, we all walk our own paths. You will learn simple yet effective tools and tips to grieve in a healthy way. Barb has 34 years experience in suicide loss as the founder of the survivor of suicide loss group, LOSS team coordinator and a victims advocate for the Saginaw County Sheriff Dept., allowing her to care for people from the onset of a suicide and for months or years following. She will use her experiences both personal and professional to guide this presentation.