About the development of the plan:
Suicide prevention requires collaborative solutions at multiple levels including individuals, families, communities, organizations and policy. It can only be effective when everyone is part of the solution: from county leadership, business owners, educators, faith leaders, health care providers, mental health professionals, first responders, to all members of our community. A comprehensive public health approach to suicide prevention emphasizes prevention, early intervention, effective crisis response, and addresses health disparities and access.
Los Angeles County’s Approach to Suicide Prevention:
• Fosters prevention and well-being through connections, education & outreach, and stigma reduction;
• Promotes early help-seeking because people know the warnings signs of suicide, resources, and are confident to intervene or get help for themselves;
• Ensures a safe and compassionate response during and after a crisis by focusing on stabilization and linkage to services in least restrictive settings;
• Supports individuals, families, schools and communities after a suicide attempt or death with short and long term support.
Los Angeles County’s plan aligns with California’s Strategic Plan for Suicide Prevention. It also aligns with Project 2025 is a national AFSP initiative to reduce the annual rate of suicide in the United States 20% by 2025.
The framework for the suicide prevention strategic plan was guided at all levels by members of the Los Angeles County Suicide Prevention Network (LASPN), a group of mental health professionals, advocates, survivors, providers, researchers, and representatives from various agencies and organizations working together to decrease the numbers of suicides in Los Angeles County. The process was further informed through a resource mapping process and online survey sent to LASPN members. Suicide prevention priorities were discussed during several quarterly meetings of the LASPN and the approach and framework, as well as draft goals and objectives for the strategic plan was reviewed during the quarterly meeting hosted in September 2019. Five additional community and stakeholder meetings were hosted on June 14th, September 24th, October 29th, October 30th and December 9th to further establish priorities, identify existing and missing resources, to review goals and objectives, and to gage interest to become involved in workgroups to implement activities. One of these meetings was focused on a conversation about mean restriction, one meeting was focused on needs for diverse communities, and a third on existing resources for survivors of suicide loss.
In addition, five strategic planning meetings were hosted between April to October 2019 as part of the Youth and Schools workgroup to discuss priorities to prevent youth suicide, resulting in a five year workplan to prevent youth suicide in Los Angeles County. Several listening sessions with first responders were hosted between May 2019 and January 2020 to identify suicide prevention priorities; interviews were conducted with stakeholders in Los Angeles County representing Veterans to inform gaps, strengths and suicide prevention strategies.
The conversations that are listed here are only the beginning and many more are needed to map out existing resources for suicide prevention, to identify gaps and strengths, and to engage partners across the county to find their role in implementing the strategies outlined in this strategic plan as a starting point for the next five years.