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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"

An excellent article -- "Grief and Bereavement: What Psychiatrists Need to Know" -- is available from World Psychiatry on PubMed Central.* The authors, Sidney Zisook and Katherine Shear, summarize the importance of their topic by noting that

After completing their education and formal training, psychiatrists may not be fully prepared to handle some of the most common clinical challenges they will face in practice. Diagnosing and treating complicated grief and bereavement related major depression will undoubtedly rank high on the list of such challenges. Both conditions overlap with symptoms found in ordinary, uncomplicated grief, and often are written off as "normal" with the assumption that time, strength of character, and the natural support system will heal.

Novelist Adam Haslett has added to the Wall Street Journal's "Five Best" series "Deathless Accounts of Mourning," which delineates the five books Haslett would recommend on the topic of grief. I am sharing Haslett's list in order to invite Suicide Grief: News & Comment readers to add a comment describing their favorite book about grief. Here are Haslett's choices and commentary: