Survivors of human trafficking and gender-based violence commonly experience mental health crises, including suicidal ideation and behavior. Unfortunately, service providers often lack training in providing the necessary support to survivors in crisis. Without sufficient training, crisis intervention services for survivors do not adhere to best practices and, in worst cases, can be detrimental.
Eleison recognizes the critical need to address suicide and takes a proactive approach by training service providers, who are often in a unique position to identify and intervene when survivors are at risk of dying by suicide. Prior research has found that a lack of training and knowledge on responding to suicidal ideation and behavior can cause staff to feel emotionally burdened when working with suicidal clients. As part of Eleison’s capacity-building programming, we train and mentor service providers to provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention services. Our suicide prevention training program covers the knowledge and concrete skills to help providers recognize suicide warning signs, communicate effectively with at-risk individuals, and comprehend the complex factors contributing to suicidal ideation and behavior. Our training includes how to ask individuals about their suicidal thoughts or behaviors, how to assess their suicidal risk, how to develop a safety plan, how to identify strategies to reduce the risk of suicide, and how to access emergency services.
From December 2022 through March 2023, Eleison was invited by Chab Dai’s Global Learning Community (GLC) to run a series of trainings on suicide prevention for its members during the GLC Coffee Corner Calls. Chab Dai, an organization that works to eradicate all forms of abuse and exploitation, has formed the GLC as a culturally diverse worldwide network of anti-trafficking partners comprised of NGOs, networks and alliances, academia, government, businesses, and consultants. The training series Eleison provided during the GLC Coffee Corner Calls helped to raise awareness about suicide, dispel misconceptions about suicide, and introduce suicide risk assessment, intervention, and research to a network of anti-trafficking organizations around the world.
Through suicide prevention training, service providers can become better equipped to help individuals struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors. Our recent evaluation of suicide prevention training showed that suicide intervention training helped reduce service providers’ psychological distress, lessened suicide-related stigma and misconceptions, decreased fear and dread when working with suicidal clients, and led to a decline in perceived emotional burdens among staff. The program also strengthened staff skills in working with suicidal clients by providing them a structured protocol and concrete opportunities to develop their clinical skills. In addition, participating staff learned to recognize warning signs and risk factors, respond in a supportive and empathetic manner, and connect individuals to appropriate resources and interventions.
Eleison’s suicide prevention training programs can be implemented anywhere globally, including a combination of in-person and virtual teaching sessions. If your organization is interested in participating in our suicide prevention training, email us at info@eleisonfoundation.org or message us here.
