Franklin Cook's blog

The need for best practices among Suicide Bereavement Support Groups (SBSG) has been highlighted at two recent national meetings, and there is a key resource on the topic, available from Lifeline Australia, that deserves consideration by SBSG facilitators everywhere: Towards Good Practice: Standards and Guidelines for Suicide Bereavement Support Groups.

Towards Good Practice ... [was] developed through wide consultation with people working with suicide bereavement support groups and with experts working in the field of Postvention ... [and] a separate literature review was undertaken ... The development of the Standards & Guidelines for SBSGs ... is based on existing research evidence and practice evidence available in the field (from the introduction to the companion book, Practice Handbook: Suicide Bereavement Support Group Facilitation).

These standards and guidelines (see the table of contents, below) are arguably the best starting place for discussions in the United States and elsewhere about improving the quality and effectiveness of mutual-help support groups for survivors of suicide loss.

Bonnie Carroll, founder of TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors), was recently featured in a Huffington Post Impact article, "Military Wife Provides Support to Families of the Fallen."

TAPS describes itself as

the 24/7 tragedy assistance resource for ANYONE who has suffered the loss of a military loved one, regardless of the relationship to the deceased or the circumstance of the death.

TAPS is also a leader in delivering services to people bereaved by suicide.

A summary report is now available from a questionnaire on suicide bereavement services and support that was completed by U.S. crisis centers in January. Here is some background information about the questionnaire:

During late 2009 and early 2010, a number of advocates interested in providing better services for survivors of suicide loss ... independently approached the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline about the potential for the Lifeline network to help increase and improve outreach to survivors. As a result of those initial discussions and a desire to learn more about crisis centers’ experience in serving survivors, an independent work group ... formed to develop a questionnaire in order to assess:

• The nature of calls from survivors to crisis centers
• The scope of resources [and] materials currently offered by crisis centers to survivors
• Crisis centers’ need and/or interest in receiving additional support for assisting survivors

At the Oregon Partnership Crisis Lines in Portland on Wednesday, April 13, SAVE was the host of a special gathering of national and international suicide survivor community leaders. Survivors, people working in the fields of suicide grief support and suicide prevention, and experts from other fields joined together for a brainstorming session about Suicide Bereavement Support Groups functioning as a network and as part of a larger caregiving system.

The meeting was held as part of SAVE's ongoing initiative to improve the assistance available to survivors of suicide loss. Readers may view a Mind Map of the group's brainstorming session in Portland on a network of SBSGS, as well as the notes taken at the meeting 

Here are the closing remarks of SAVE Executive Director Dr. Dan Reidenberg, which capture the spirit of SAVE's commitment to strengthening suicide bereavement programs and services in communities everywhere:

Readers also can view a video of the closing comments made by the participants at the meeting. To learn more, please see www.save.org/nextsteps or email Franklin Cook, Director of Survivor and Bereavement Programs.

There are a number of free resources available to help facilitators in their work with suicide bereavement support groups (SBSGs). Here are two that stand out for their quality and accessibility:

• "How to Start a Survivors' Group" by the World Health Organization, which is a revised version of a resource prepared as part of SUPRE, the WHO worldwide initiative for the prevention of suicidal behavior
• Lifeline Australia's "Practice Handbook: Suicide Bereavement Support Group Facilitation," which contains information designed to help facilitators work on practices recommended in "Towards Good Practice: Standards & Guidelines for Suicide Bereavement Support Groups"