Youth Suicidality: Understanding, Assessing, Safety Planning and Decreasing Future Suicidal Ideation

Pamela Parkinson, Ph.D., LCSW  

Training Description

Come to this training on understanding suicidal ideation with kids.  This is going to be a training within the context of family because we need the larger team to keep kids safe.  We are going to talk about why kids might choose suicide, things to look for, how we talk about it, ways to assess and how to keep kids safe!  However, once kids are safe, our focus will shift to how do we keep them alive and having a future outlook that does not include seeing suicide as a viable option for managing their pain.  

Learning Objectives

• Describe and understand what suicidal ideation represents and how to explore and assess it.
• Identify what signs look like, some strategies for keeping kids safe in the moment. 
• Apply our understanding of what SI means to ways that we can work with a family system in an effort to decrease the chances that this SI will continue to feel like an option in the future.

Agenda

9:15      Sign In

9:30      Defining and understanding what strength-based and diagnosing are.

10:45     Group work and brainstorming on specific DSM disorders what they tell us.

11:45    BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

12:00     Identifying what the DSM is really trying to communicate albeit in a confusing kind 

             of way.

1:00     LUNCH (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

1:30      Culture and Environmental factors in diagnosing:  Applying these as the core factor.

2:00       Group work on identifying reducing the use of stigmatizing labels.

3:00      BREAK (CEUs will not be issued for this time)

3:15      Review of theory and what this actually is?  I almost never hear anyone discussing 

             theory in depth.  It can’t guide our interventions if we don’t know what it is!   

3:30      Final group work on applying theory to guide out services/treatment.  Let’s do this!

4:30      ADJOURNMENT

Meet Our Trainer

PAMELA PARKINSON, PHD, LCSW, is a clinical psychologist and clinical social worker, whose specialty area is working with youth and their families who are being served by our continuums of care.  Dr. Parkinson’s emphasis is on the importance of family engagement and the healing of traumatic attachment ruptures.  Pamela is also a certified PCOMS evidence-based practice trainer.  She currently works as a child/family consultant to CBO’s in the Bay Area and Pamela has worked in level 14 residential, NPS, hospitals, and a variety of community-based settings including outpatient clinics, schools, diversion, kinship, etc.

This course meets the qualifications for (6) BBS CEUs for LCSWs and MFTs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences & is provided by Fred Finch Youth Center, CAMFT Provider #045295.