Kansas Department of Education prompts school districts to update their fall suicide prevention response plans

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – The Kansas State Department of Education has updated their 2018 suicide prevention plan and are prompting all of their Kansas school districts to do the same.

The Kansas Suicide Prevention, intervention, reintegration and postvention toolkit is a comprehensive guide that provides step-by-step guidance for setting up a systematic approach to suicide prevention, response and postvention for schools.

“We don’t think any student who makes a statement of self-harm is just telling a story or trying to get attention. We take every statement serious,” says Dr. Joy Grimes, Principal at Avondale Academy.

All 286 school districts are required to come up with a response plan that meets the needs of their specific community using the toolkit.

The principals, admins and all their support staff have been training teachers when that child needs to have a critical conversation, a conversation that is supportive but also allows the child to express what it is that is troubling them,” says Susan Mills Coordinator of Social Services for USD-501.

Trish Backman with KSDE says they have added new language and resources like the 988 hotline and their new reintegration plan, one that Backman says she is especially proud of.

“So that reintegration part had never been broken out specifically until this year because it had always been looked at as prevention intervention and postvention, if that reintegration piece isn’t in place a lot of times that safety net isn’t there and the kids continually stir from one crisis to the next,” says Backman.

Backman says each staff member is required to undergo at least one hour of suicide prevention training.

“So one of the recommendations we make in the toolkit is when you have your plan if you’re comfortable posting the skeleton or the basics that you want everybody to know about your plan put it on your website. The thing I would really encourage every district to do is put who your school mental health team is. If your kid is having a crisis then the people in the community can look that up on your website and they know who to contact,” she says.

She also says the number of student suicides have started to come down slowly.

“With our new graduation requirements where kids have to be actively engaged in something one of the things that they can do join some kind of a youth empowerment group and every group gets to pick what their topic is going to be and a lot of them have chosen suicide,” says Bachman.

Backman says more resources for staff and families in need are now available here.

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