Leading With a Focus on Strengths and Evidence Informed Practices When Facing Teens and Young Adults With a Death Wish

Location: Capra Session Description: Our goal will be to understand the role of the clinician in utilizing strength-based approaches in assessing and treating suicidal ideation in youth and young adults. Why strength-based? Because we need to engage youth and young adults to assess and treat, understanding that a focus merely on pathology is often not engaging. We need to be curious about what is right with them and help them see this.
We will explore how our youth today face a variety of stressors stemming from the aftermath of the worldwide pandemic-Covid-19. These include Increased drug and alcohol use in parents and caregivers; mental health concerns within the family; maltreatment; societal and world conflicts; school shootings; climate change; and the increasing perception that drug use is ok, all of which are resulting in drug and alcohol usage with resulting overdose deaths and increased high-risk behavior such as reckless driving.
Together we will understand that suicide is surprisingly impulsive. Most who decide to do it act within an hour … nearly a quarter act within five minutes. We will explore access to lethal means: guns, and drugs, and how to develop and reinforce safety plans utilizing the 10 steps in the Zero Suicide Model for assessing and treating suicidal ideation in youth and young adults.