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Guide
to Effective Programs
for Children and Youth |
Untitled School Based Suicide-Prevention Program
OVERVIEW
This school-based suicide prevention program is a 1 or 2 semester long personal growth class targeted at students at risk of school failure, dropout, and possibly suicide. The course is designed to develop and encourage social support, address problems raised by students and teach life skills, mood and anger management skills and problem solving skills. Researchers measured students’ suicide-risk factors, related risk factors and protective factors over a 10-week time period. They found little significant differences in the trends on these measures between the experimental and comparison groups. Experimental subjects did show significant increases in feelings of personal control where the comparison group did not.
The dropout and suicide prevention intervention program is a set of 2 Personal Growth Classes (PGC I and II) offered at the high school level which are based on several theoretical developmental frameworks and are designed to alleviate adolescent problem behaviors by integrating social support, positive peer group culture and life skills training. Each course is 1 semester long and is offered for credit.
Both PGC I and PGC II include the following components:
Small group work characterized by social support which facilitated peer to peer and group leader to student exchanges
Weekly monitoring of activities targeting changes in mood and behavior
Life skills training (self-esteem, decision making, personal control, interpersonal communication)
The course was designed to address real life problems emerging from the students, themselves; and the training skills developed were intended to address multiple problems in multiple areas of the students’ lives.
PGC I emphasized group support and bonding with the other students and group leaders while PGC II emphasized broader school bonding and trained students to transfer learned skills. Students were encouraged to seek broader social support and participate in school activities of interest to them. Classes seek to decrease depression and suicidal behaviors.
Approach: Students were identified as “at risk for school failure” and targeted for the intervention if they had fewer than expected credits earned for their grade level, high absentee rate, low and declining GPA, prior dropout status, and/or referral from school personal as being in jeopardy of failure. Students were then randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Participants then took the High School Questionnaire, which included embedded questions addressing suicide-risk, other related risk factors and protective factors. 40 percent of the original at-risk for school failure sample were also identified as at-risk for suicide. All suicide-risk students (experimental and control) then participated in a 2-hour in-depth interview using the MAPS protocol (Measure of Adolescent Potential for Suicide). All students identified as at-risk in all the groups were introduced to a case manager, and a parent or guardian was contacted. 202 “typical students” were randomly assigned from the five schools, during the same time period to be included in the study. These students were defined as not at-risk for school failure, and were included to serve as a comparison with the at-risk students.
Experimental participants took either the 1-semester (5 month) or 2-semester (10 month) Personal Growth Classes (PGC I and II). All participants were measured on suicide risk factors, related risk factors and protective factors at baseline, 5 month (after PGC I) and 10 month (after PGC II) intervals. The data was analyzed for patterns of change on all three measures among the three groups.
Results: Researchers found that suicide risk behaviors and thoughts were reduced for all 3 groups (including the control) and the greatest effects were seen in the control group and the single semester PGC group of whom 85 percent showed decreased suicide –risk behaviors of 25 percent or more (65 percent of the 2-semester group showed similar results). Scales of depression, hopelessness and stress showed similar patterns of decline among all three groups.
The major treatment effect was seen in students’ perceived personal control. Experimental groups showed significant improvements on measures of personal control (44 percent of participants showed improvement) whereas only 20 percent of the control group showed similar improvements.
Researchers attribute a significant portion of suicide-risk and related-risk declines to the MAPS interview protocol and/or contact with a case manager or parent, based on the declining patterns seen in the control group as well as the experimental groups. The MAPS interview was found to be generally as successful as the Personal Growth Class in the reduction of suicide-risk behaviors and related-risk factors.
Eggert, L. L., Thompson, E. A., Herting, J. R., Nicholas, L. J. (1995). Reducing suicide potential among high-risk youth: Tests of a School Based Prevention Program. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 25(2), 276-296.
Program categorized in this guide according to the following:
Evaluated participant ages: 14-18 Program age ranges in the Guide: 12-14, 15-21
Program components: School-based; counseling/therapy
Measured outcomes: Social and emotional health and development; life skills; mental health.
Program information last updated 09/09/04.
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© Child Trends 2004 |