Suicide Prevention Symposium
2024-04-10 08:30 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Wednesday, April 10 2024 8:30 AM — 5:00 PM EST
Tickets available online

The program will run from 8:30 am – 5:00 pm and will include lunch. Registration will open at 8:00 am. All events will be held in the Brent Auditorium in Jefferson Alumni Hall, 1020 Locust St, Philadelphia.
SCHEDULE
8:30 – 12:00 Understanding Ethical, Medico-Legal, and Treatment Issues in Individuals At-Risk of Suicide
12:00 – 12:45 Lunch
1:00 – 2:30 Secure Firearms Storage and Suicide Prevention
2:40 – 4:45 Safety-A Planning
Understanding Ethical, Medico-Legal, and Treatment Issues in Individuals At-Risk of Suicide, Dr. Lanny Berman
This workshop offers a deep dive into clinical standards of care for patients at risk of suicide. Evidence-based challenges to long-held (and misconceived) practices in assessing suicide risk will be offered; corrective strategies will be presented and linked to risk-based treatment planning. Medico-legal issues pertinent to the assessment and treatment of suicidal patients and based on malpractice cases will be discussed. In addition, ethical issues that arise in assessing and treating patients at risk, such as recognizing acute risk in patients who deny suicide ideation, dealing with non-adherence, decisions to hospitalize, confidentiality, split treatment, tel-mental health care, and standards of competence. Strategies to minimize potential complaints and the importance of documentation will be discussed.
Dr. Berman holds degrees from the Johns Hopkins University and the Catholic University of America. With over 50 years of experience, he has held significant roles in academia and suicide prevention organizations, authored or edited 9 books and more than 175 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on suicide and suicide prevention. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, while also contributing to suicide prevention projects internationally and offering expert testimony in legal cases involving individuals who have died by suicide.
Secure Firearms Storage and Suicide Prevention, Dr. Mike Anestis
In this presentation, Dr. Anestis will discuss how secure firearm storage could help reduce the national suicide rate. Additionally, he will discuss the roles that different members of the community, not only clinicians, can play in promoting shifts in social norms around secure firearm storage. This presentation is non-partisan and focuses on methods for empowering firearm owners to increase their own safety and that of their loved ones.
Dr. Anestis is a clinical psychologist, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, and an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at Rutgers. His research focuses primarily on suicide prevention, with a particular emphasis on the role of firearms in both military and civilian populations. He is the author of over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles and a book, entitled Guns and Suicide: An American Epidemic. He has been a named investigator in over $20 million in externally funded research projects, including serving as the PI on the initial trial of Project Safe Guard, a form of lethal means counseling. In 2018, Dr. Anestis received the Edwin Shneidman Award for early career achievement in suicide research.
Overview of SAFETY-A, Dr. Lucas Zullo
SAFETY-A (previously referred to as the Family Intervention for Suicide Prevention/FISP) is an evidence-based therapeutic assessment for youth suicide prevention. It is designed to gather information on the current level of suicide risk as well as provide a brief therapeutic intervention to mitigate this risk and establish safety. SAFETY-A is a family-focused intervention, with components to be used with the youth alone, caregiver alone, and family together. An overview of SAFETY-A will be provided along with video examples demonstrating the delivery of the intervention.
Dr. Zullo is an Assistant Professor at Thomas Jefferson University and the Clinical and Fellowship Director of the David Farber ASPIRE Center. Dr. Zullo has a passion for community-partnered, equity-driven care and is committed to making high-quality, evidence-based services available to all families seeking care at the ASPIRE Center. Dr. Zullo is one of the founders and co-leaders of the Trauma-Informed Suicide Prevention and Postvention Community of Practice within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and his research focuses on quality improvement of clinical services, with an emphasis on care for LGBTQ+ youth at risk for suicide.
CEU, APA, and LSW/LCSW/LPC/LMFT credits offered from Drexel University. CE Statements below:
APA (Psychologists) Drexel University College of Medicine, Behavioral Healthcare Education is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Drexel University College of Medicine, Behavioral Healthcare Education maintains responsibility for the program and its content. This program is being offered for up to 7 hours of continuing education.
LSW/LCSW/LPC/LMFT (PA SBSWE Licensed Social Workers in Pennsylvania) Drexel University College of Medicine is a preapproved provider of continuing education for Social Workers and Clinical Social Workers. This program is being offered for up to 7 hours of continuing education.

Nurturing Hope: Supporting Loved Ones Who Have Passive Suicidal Thoughts
2024-09-10 19:00 - 20:00
Nurturing Hope: Supporting Loved Ones Who Have Passive Suicidal Thoughts, sponsored by Families for Depression Awareness.
Airing Tuesday, September 10, 2024, from 7:00 to 8:00 pm ET
Learn more online
Watch live on Facebook or YouTube
Dealing with chronic passive suicidal thoughts can feel like being stuck in a dark tunnel with no end in sight, both for the individual going through them and for their caregivers. It’s an experience that can feel isolating and overwhelming, but it’s not something you have to face alone.
Join us for “Nurturing Hope: Supporting Loved Ones Who Have Passive Suicidal Thoughts”, a livestream panel discussion that aims to illuminate the difficult nature of passive suicidality. We’ll explore ways to navigate these delicate situations, offering resources and strategies for caregivers. Together, we can foster open conversations, encourage understanding, and provide crucial support for our loved ones.

Presenters

Kiara Alvarez, PhD

Kiara Alvarez, PhD is a Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a licensed psychologist and holds a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research focuses on youth mental health equity, suicide prevention, and the well-being of Latinx and immigrant youth, including family-centered approaches to integrating mental health into primary care and community settings. She is on the Board of Directors for the Society for Prevention Research and steering committee for the Youth Suicide Research Consortium.

Johanna Louie, LCSW

Johanna Louie is a licensed clinical social worker passionate about caring for caregivers. In 10+ years of working in suicide prevention, she has served in roles like crisis line manager and psychotherapist, as well as directed clinical training programs. In 2018, she co-founded Suicide Is Different (SID) with Daniela Zanich. To this day, SID continues to provide support services for both professional and family caregivers caring for someone thinking about suicide. Johanna holds Master’s Degrees in Social Work from Columbia University and Human Behavior from the University of Southern California.

Imadé Nibokun

Imadé (ee-MAH-day) is a writer, mental health advocate, and founder of Depressed While Black®. She is a suicide attempt survivor who lives with clinical depression and borderline personality disorder. Imadé first developed Depressed While Black as her 2015 Columbia University Non-Fiction Creative Writing MFA thesis. Depressed While Black has grown into an online community and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that donates Black-affirming personal care items to psychiatric patients and connects people to Black therapists.

Lisa Mecham, MSW, Moderator

Lisa Mecham, MSW, is a writer and freelance editor based in California. Her work has been featured in The New York Times: Tiny Modern Love and Roxane Gay’s bestselling anthology Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture. Lisa’s writing about redefining her family and staying legally married to her husband, despite their separation, has been published in The On Being Project and HuffPost. Lisa’s interests center around resiliency, agency, and hope, with a particular focus on empowering women. She holds a Master of Social Work degree from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Cognitive Behavioral Nightmare Therapies and PTSD
2024-09-18 14:00 - 15:00
Wednesday, September 18 at 2:00pm ET
The prevalence of nightmare disorder in the general population is 5%. Nightmares are typically characterized as idiopathic (i.e., from an unknown cause) or trauma-related (i.e., beginning or changing in frequency, severity, or content after a traumatic event). Nightmares are reported by 30% of trauma-exposed civilians, 50% of trauma-exposed veterans, and 30-40% of active duty military personnel and members of the National Guard. Among individuals diagnosed with PTSD, nightmare rates are higher and are reported by 57% of civilians with PTSD and 50-70% of active duty service members with PTSD. A variety of cognitive behavioral interventions show promise for the treatment of nightmares and also improve insomnia, PTSD, and depression. There is a wide range of names for the various treatments tested in randomized controlled trials, which creates challenges in comparing treatment efficacy by protocol in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Furthermore, there are not enough providers trained in CBT-N. This presentation will bridge the gap by summarizing data regarding the definition and prevalence of nightmares, providing an overview of CBT-N protocols, describing research of the efficacy of CBT-N in PTSD, and describing a newly developed, DoD funded, web-based provider training for CBT-N.
View event listing
Register online

About the Presenter

KRISTI PRUIKSMA, PhD, DBSM is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University
of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and a Diplomat for Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Her work focuses on clinical research and supporting dissemination of evidence-based treatments for sleep disorders and PTSD with a focus on active duty military personnel in affiliation with the STRONG STAR Consortium. She has published more than 50 empirically- reviewed articles and is currently the PI of a DoD funded project to build and test a web-based provider training for CBT for nightmares and a DoD funded project comparing CBT-I and BBT-I in active duty service members with postconcussive symptoms following Mild TBI.
