Suicide Prevention at Trillium
Zero Suicide Committee
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Trillium’s Zero Suicide Committee is a multidisciplinary team dedicated to developing, coordinating, and sustaining a comprehensive, agency-wide approach to suicide prevention. The goal of the committee is to ensure that suicide prevention is not viewed solely as the responsibility of individual clinicians, but rather as a collective, system-wide commitment to safety, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Over the past year, grant funded projects included work on caring contacts, school transitions, and clinician trainings., We significantly expanded the evidence based suicide prevention practice of sending non-demand Caring Contact postcards to clients after discharging from services. We partnered with Portland State University to gather input from schools across the state on how to improve support for students returning to their classrooms following facility or hospital based mental health treatment, especially when related to suicidal ideation or behavior. We also increased the number of therapists across the agency trained in the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) evidence based treatment method.
Caring Contact Cards
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Known by various names, Caring Contacts, Caring Messages, or Caring Letters, the suicide prevention intervention of sending a brief, kind, non-demanding message to clients after they’ve been discharged from residential services has been shown to save lives. During the first month after being discharged from high-acuity care, youth are at a much higher risk for suicide compared to the general population. Caring Contacts can help them feel connected, hopeful, and safer during a period of high risk. Based on evidence from multiple studies, sending Caring Contacts over a period of a year post discharge relates to a reduction in suicide attempts. These simple post discharge interventions can support positive patient outcomes.
