Working to Prevent Suicide: Pocket of Empowerment, a printed, pocket-sized suicide prevention tool offering visual coping strategies for youth is currently being piloted through the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) and New Haven Public Schools. Developed by Selin Kelly, LMSW, a second-year clinical social work fellow at the YCSC, a central goal of the pocket-sized resource is to empower individuals and health care professionals.

The pocket guide is designed as an engaging and easy-to-use resource that offers proactive, supportive prompts and references, with a focus on resilience. Kelly developed the tool using a preventive and trauma-informed framework, with an aim to strengthen engagement in services and improve access to care. She was inspired to develop the tool during her graduate training and related experiences working in rural Montana, where she worked with Tribal communities and encountered unique barriers to accessing related care, support, and resources.

“I am deeply passionate about understanding the intersection of trauma, grief, and suicide,” she shares. “The mental health landscape is so complex in rural and remote areas, and related barriers are not always addressed through existing ways of thinking about youth mental health and suicide. This tool focuses on safety planning and offers optimization of coping and strength of individuals with an emphasis on culturally responsive care for members of the Indigenous/Tribal communities in rural areas. It encapsulates all of this in a way that can fit into a pocket and be delivered in a single session or in a community health setting.”

Kelly is currently collaborating with Riverside High School in New Haven, where the pocket guide has been made available to all students. She will be leading group sessions with youth at the high school this spring, with a focus on trauma-informed emotion regulation, aiming to use the tool to enhance resilience and target suicide prevention.

The tool is also being piloted at the YCSC through the Children’s Day Hospital to supplement current safety planning procedures, in addition to its continued use in Montana, where Kelly served as the keynote speaker at the Wahpikisik Integrated Health Symposium this past October. This opportunity provided a platform to extend the reach of the resource and share the framework with members of the Chippewa Cree, the Native American tribe residing on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in Montana.

“My hope is for this to be utilized everywhere, cross-culturally,” Kelly says. “Children who live in rural communities need to be heard, and suicide is the second leading cause of death, with Native American children being one of those groups with the highest risk to attempt and die by suicide. We should be open to new ways of thinking about suicide prevention—which is to reconsider what wellness truly means, including the importance of incorporating ceremonial and cultural ways of healing.”

Two versions have been designed (as pictured), both with colorful and engaging layouts. The first was created in collaboration with Angela Engram, a Native American artist and member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. The second version was designed by Sol Cotti, an award-winning Latina artist from Buenos Aires. Newswise/SP