Advancing Your Suicide Prevention and Clinical Management for Diverse Clientele

Advancing Your Suicide Prevention and Clinical Management for Diverse Clientele - Cohosted by CSCSW and Concern: EAP

Speakers:    Joyce Chu, Ph.D. and Christopher Weaver, Ph.D.

This training meets the new requirement for suicide prevention training and provides 6 CEUs.

Note: Dinner will be provided.

Course Overview:

Though almost all mental health professionals encounter suicide risk within their practices, formal training on suicide prevention and clinical management is sparse. The first portion of the current presentation will provide instruction and a forum for clinical discussion and case practice, on the current standards of practice for suicide prevention and management. A useable framework and accessible guidelines will ensure that workshop participants are able to competently manage suicide risk in their practice, incorporating the latest standards in suicide science. The second portion of this workshop addresses the management of suicide in diverse populations common in California. Most health and behavioral health professionals have been trained to manage suicide with similar strategies and guidelines regardless of cultural identity or background. However, studies have long shown that suicide looks and develops differently in LGBTQ and ethnic minority groups. This workgroup will provide a foundational understanding of how suicide differs across cultural groups, and will cover advances in the culturally competent assessment and management of suicide. Attendees will learn state-of-science theoretical, measurement, and applied research as practical approaches to assist clinicians in accounting for cultural influences on suicide risk among diverse populations. Aims are to provide guidance to advance culturally competent suicide research and practice.

Learning Objectives

This workshop is designed to help you:

• Identify six key steps of assessing and managing suicide risk
• Apply standard approaches to suicide risk assessment and inquiry, incorporating current level of risk and standard suicide risk and protective factors
• Describe important clinical and legal documentation considerations involved in the suicide risk management
• Identify major components of safety planning, suicide risk case conceptualization, and treatment planning
• Discuss the latest research on cultural differences in suicide, and culturally competent assessment and prevention of suicide among ethnic minority and LGBTQ populations.
• Identify predominant barriers to training and practice in culturally competent suicide assessment and practice.
• Apply a guiding framework and assessment tools/approaches that will advance culturally competent suicide practice with diverse populations, with a clinical case.

About the Presenters:

Joyce Chu, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist, Associate Professor, and Faculty Chair at Palo Alto University (PAU). She co-directs the Center for Excellence in Diversity and Diversity and Community Mental Health (DCMH) emphasis at PAU. Her work is focused around advancing the assessment and prevention of suicide for ethnic minority and LGBTQ populations, particularly in Asian Americans. She has published numerous works including a cultural theory and model of suicide and a tool that assists in accounting for cultural influences on suicide risk. Her work is community-collaborative and aims to address the need for culturally congruent outreach and service options for underserved communities. Dr. Chu works with the Santa Clara Suicide Prevention Oversight Committee (SPOC) team to evaluate and infuse cultural competency into their programmatic efforts, and currently serves as the SPOC’s Data Workgroup co-chair.

Christopher Weaver, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Palo Alto University, and Director of PAU’s Forensic Psychology Program. Dr. Weaver received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Louisville, and has held research and clinical positions (pre- and postdoctoral) at the University of California, San Francisco and Stanford University. He has published in the areas of psychopathy and violence and suicide risk assessment, and more recently in the areas of substance abuse and psychological trauma. His publications also include co-authored books in law & mental health and psychopathology. Dr. Weaver’s current research focuses on the role that trauma and substance use play in criminal offending, the assessment of dissimulation in PTSD assessment. He is also conducting a funded training and research program designed to increase police officer effectiveness in working with people with mental illness.

Acknowledgement of collaborators:  Bruce Bongar, Ph.D, ABPP, FAPM, CPsychol, CSci; Peter Goldblum, Ph.D., MPH