Are Teachers of Children and Young Adolescents Responsive to Suicide Prevention Training Modules? Yes

Both before and after a 1-hour suicide prevention training module, 75 elementary teachers-in-training read a 4-sentence vignette about a suicidal student ("Pat"), then completed 8 questions about their responses. Compared with pretraining, at post-training these teachers were more likely to say that they would send or escort Pat to the counselor's office, use written or verbal no-suicide agreements, call Pat's parents, believe Pat to be serious rather than simply seeking attention, and feel comfortable handling a similar situation. Increased proactive attitudes after one hour of training imply that teachers would benefit from periodic suicide awareness and prevention training modules.