Description
How does an educator know whether a student is “just venting” or legitimately contemplating suicide?
During this 90-minute WebRemix, presenter Kim Johancen shares tools and strategies to determine if a student – or a co-worker — may be at risk of suicide. Viewers will gain skills and strategies to assist a student or a co-worker who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts and gain an understanding of the overwhelming pain those considering suicide are facing. Discover the risk factors and the very real contagion risk. Finally, viewers will be encouraged to challenge their own beliefs and attitudes about suicide in order to build competency in their ability to administer mental health first aid to others.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand why suicide is a problem and what the risks are in vulnerable populations
- Discover the connections between trauma and suicidal thinking
- Know the additional risk factors
- Explore models for assessment and intervention
- See what an intervention involves
- Understand what protective factors are
- Explore protocols – what’s working, what needs improving
About the Presenter
Kim Johancen is a licensed professional counselor with over twenty years of experience working with clients who have experienced trauma. Her career includes working with adolescent and adult survivors dealing with complicated grief and loss – including sexual trauma, relationship loss, individuals and families who have been impacted by suicide, and clients struggling with self-injury. In addition to seeing adolescents, adults, and families, Kim also has experience facilitating both small and large groups including crisis debriefings at local agencies in Durango, Colorado where she resided until recently. Kim has been invited to present at numerous conferences and seminars both locally and nationally and has presented her work on self-injury at Harvard University and her work with suicidal patients at Stony Brook University in New York. In addition to her clinical work Kim has also been asked to contribute a chapter to Matthew Selekman’s Adolescent and Young Adult Self-Harming Treatment Manual and has published over nine articles with the American Counseling Association. Kim currently has a column on the ACA website and continues to offer both counseling and consultation services to various agencies both nationally and locally.
