Postvention
A suicide within a community, regardless of your relationship to the person, can have a varied and lasting impact. Whether it be a friend, family member, colleague, or someone you know, the effects of a suicide loss can ripple through a community and be felt many relationships removed from the person who died. This leaves behind a complex grief characterized by guilt, blame, fear, and confusion. Questions are left unanswered for those who struggle to understand why.
Postvention is an organized response in the aftermath of a suicide to accomplish any one or more of the following:1
- To facilitate the healing of individuals from the grief and distress of suicide loss
- To mitigate other negative effects of exposure to suicide
- To prevent suicide among people who are at high risk after exposure to suicide
Postvention is prevention. Organizations – particularly schools, workplaces, health care settings, and senior centers – should incorporate postvention so that they are prepared to respond to a suicide death. This includes both planning ahead and responding effectively after a suicide.2
In planning ahead:
- Develop plans and protocols in advance
- Be prepared to respond to both the immediate and longer-term emotional needs of everyone involved
- Build relationships with all who interact with those who experience loss including social service professionals, mental health providers, emergency medical services personnel, and law enforcement
- Adopt an active postvention model in which a trained postvention team reaches out proactively following a suicide rather than waiting for survivors to directly seek help
For an effective response:
- Work with the media to encourage safe messaging (link to safe and effective messaging page) and share the Reporting on Suicide media toolkit.
- Create environments for mourning that do not increase the risk of contagion
- Provide peer and professional treatment options
- Support and guide family and friends so that they can provide support to those who are grieving
Resources
- Workplace Suicide
- Supports for Professional Caregivers
- Clinical Response Following Opioid Overdose: A Guide for Managers
- Visit our Suicide Loss of a Patient or Client page to learn more. (link to page)
- Schools, Colleges, and Universities