Suicide Prevention Toolkit for District Health Boards

Summary

The Ministry of Health has developed this Suicide Prevention Toolkit to support DHBs implement suicide prevention and postvention activities within their regions.

The Toolkit outlines some of the key services areas involved, and discusses the issues that DHBs need to consider when planning how to address suicide. It is not expected that DHBs will need to use all the tools, resources, ideas and guidance this Toolkit presents. District health boards know their communities best; they will need to design an approach that best meets the needs of their individual communities.

Using the toolkit

Each section of the Toolkit gives some guidance to help DHBs and provides some examples from the sector and some supporting resources and templates.

Developing a suicide prevention and postvention plan

The DHB suicide prevention and postvention plan template is a guide to help DHBs develop their own plan. Use the resources in the toolkit to help complete each section of the suicide prevention and postvention plan template.

Tools and templates to help with planning

Coronial Data Sharing Service

The Coronial Data Sharing Service is a means for DHBs to access up-to-date coronial information on suspected suicides in their area via a secure channel to assist suicide postvention. It operates under the auspices of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Coronial Service.

Core suicide prevention messages

The core suicide prevention messages are designed to provide simple, clear advice to people who are worried about the suicide risk of someone close to them: family members, whānau, friends, colleagues, students or classmates.

The messages are available to be used by DHBs and other agencies in communicating about suicide prevention with communities across New Zealand. They may be adapted, or presented in different formats, to create information resources for different population groups.

Suicide prevention workshop for DHBs

This workshop was run in October 2015 to support DHBs in leading suicide prevention for their regions. It provided the forum to share information, foster collaboration and share good practice. It also provided a valuable opportunity for the Ministry to gauge DHB capacity and capability and to learn more about what type of support, tools, or resources might help DHBs to effectively undertake their new role.

Resources from the workshop are available to download below.

Prevention

Postvention

Websites

• The Lowdown

Feedback and submitting new resources for the toolkit

We would like to hear from you. Please tell us how the Toolkit is working for you, which elements are the most useful and the areas in which it could be improved. If you would like to provide feedback please email us at [email protected]

New information and evidence on suicide prevention is being generated all the time. If you know of a new resource or best practice example that might be useful to DHBs and should be considered for inclusion in this Toolkit, please let us know.

Toolkit

Examples from the sector