Building Skills to Reach Suicidal Youth (BRIDGES)

Target: Youth Workers

Subject: Youth Suicide Prevention

Project: 2-Day Comprehensive Training Program, 1/2-Day Awareness Training, and/or
1-Day Course for Trainers

This project focuses on a serious public health concern, for more than 5,000 U.S. teenagers and young adults take their own lives each year, with possibly 50 times more than that attempting to do so and countless other experiencing suicidal ideation. In response to these alarming numbers, BRIDGES targets youth workers of all types-social workers, psychologists, guidance counselors, school nurses, and other immediate responders to children's needs-and covers eight critical areas pertinent to suicide crisis intervention:

*Understanding Adolescent Suicide
*Suicide and Society
*Risk Assessment
*Intervening with the Suicidal Adolescent
*Intervening with the Family System
*Intervening with the Peer System
*An Organizational Strategy for Suicide Prevention
*Post-intervention Policies & Procedures

In addition to the core 16-hour BRIDGES program, OPSR offers a half-day Awareness Training, as well as a one-day Training for Trainers course for professionals who wish to serve as trainers for others in their organizations. (The Training for Trainers course is available only to those who have completed the core BRIDGES program.)

BRIDGES has been field-tested in over 500 schools and has been recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and by the American Academy of Pediatrics as a seminal suicide prevention program for at-risk youth.

Office of Prevention Services & Research
Fax (732) 235-9266 * E-mail: opsr@chmc.umdnj.edu
1-800-762-2989/732-235-9260