End Suicide Project – Sandbox | University of Chicago

Black Youth Suicide Prevention Project

background

Suicide is a leading cause of death for Black youth in the U.S., and the rates of suicide among this population have increased dramatically in recent years. Our team is working to combat this crisis by developing a school-based suicide prevention program for Black middle school students in Chicago.

Before actually implementing the intervention, we recruited Black parents and their middle school-aged children to participate in interviews with our research team in order to gain their perspectives about the mental health needs of Black youth in Chicago today. Using their perspectives, we created a new suicide prevention video intervention that we are now implementing in schools. We will administer surveys to participating students to test the efficacy of the new suicide prevention program.

This project is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and will run from 2022-2025. Please contact us to learn more about the study.

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key documents

Below facilitators will find all documents needed to implement the intervention in the classroom. Please review the documents in sequential order, starting with item 1.

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1. Facilitator Training

Video training for facilitators that explains motivations for the intervention and all documents we will provide schools

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2. Planning Checklist

List of items for school administrators and teachers to complete to prepare for intervention administration

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3. Facilitator Script

The facilitator script for administering the surveys and intervention.

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4. Exit Slips

At the end of each data collection time point students will receive a slip of paper that asks if they would like to speak with school staff. This practice is used in the existing/ standard intervention and will be applied to the culturally adapted version of the intervention as well.

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