Assignment 2: Suicide Prevention

Suicide prevention is an important responsibility for all correctional workers, especially the forensic mental health professional. Suicide prevention efforts include accurate assessment and effective intervention with offenders. In addition, they include the training of all correctional workers as potential "assessors" of suicide risk among offenders in a correctional setting.

Tasks:

Assume you are the forensic mental health expert in a prison. You have been asked to conduct training with various supervisors on the topic of suicide prevention.

Using at least three scholarly resources from the professional literature, research the prevalence of suicide in correctional institutions and the methods of accurate assessment and effective intervention with offenders. The literature may include the Argosy University online library resources; relevant textbooks; peer-reviewed journal articles; and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (.edu, .org, or .gov).

Develop a 12- to 15-slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation with detailed speaker notes to generate a training program for the supervisors in a prison. Your training program must include the following:

• An explanation of the prevalence of suicide in correctional settings
• A description of the common myths of suicide
• Identification signs of increased suicide risk and how a forensic mental health professional can assess for such signs
• An explanation of how suicide watch procedures should be structured so that the suicide watch is effective, safe, and ethical
• Identification of three to five community resources that can assist offenders being released. Pick a major city (such as New York or Los Angeles) and search for community resources that have specific programs and services for offenders being released.
• A comparison of the available services to help address both general and specialized needs. Be sure to cite your resources.
• A summary and an explanation of the best possible case scenario for an offender being released to live in the major city you selected.

Give reasons and examples from your research to support your responses.

Be sure to include the following in your presentation:

• A title slide
• A reference slide
• Headings for each section
• Speaker notes to support the content on each slide

Note: If you need help developing this PowerPoint presentation, click the link at the top of this page to access Tutorials.

Submission Details:

• By the due date assigned, save your report as FP6905_M4_A2_Lastname_Firstname.ppt and submit it to the Submissions Area.