The special report "Systems Must Include Three Levels of Care for Aftermath of Suicide" (available to read or download below) is essential reading for anyone involved in developing, implementing, or assessing services designed to help people who have been affected by a suicide fatality, such as first responders, mental health practitioners, and the suicide bereaved.

Based on recently released national guidelines,* the report delineates three levels of care:
   • Immediate response: crisis assistance, triage and referral, follow-up
   • Support: assistance with grief and loss, self-help
   • Treatment: interventions for potentially debilitating conditions

Quoting Goal 6 of the guidelines -- which is to "ensure that people exposed to a suicide receive essential and appropriate information" -- the report explains that providing such information is a goal that applies across all three levels of care. It also features an addendum, "Information for People Exposed to a Suicide" that outlines the kinds of information that are valuable to people exposed to a suicide and points to the online resource directory available at bit.ly/afterasuicide.

The manual was created by Friends for Survival, one of the oldest survivor-run organizations in the country focused exclusively on suicide grief support (and which publishes the "Comforting Friends" newsletter). Although the manual was designed for a California audience, 95% of it is applicable to any community anywhere in the country, and anyone interested in developing a broad range of survivor services would be wise to add it to their list of prime references.

Survivors need more than a meeting with a couple of sympathetic souls and a box of tissues These guidelines are based on a program designed by 50 survivors over a period of 30 years to provide multiple services to meet the complex needs of survivors in the aftermath of suicide. This guide offers a detailed discussion of the process for creating and sustaining a suicide bereavement support program that is effective, community based and supported by professional resources in the local area.

Postvention is psychological first aid, crisis intervention, and other support offered after a suicide to affected individuals or the workplace as a whole to alleviate possible negative effects of the event.

The Guide outlines the vital roles managers play when a crisis situation occurs in a workplace, including fostering effective communications, providing helpful resources, and setting an example for employees. The 10 action steps are designed for implementation in any work setting, and the Guide concisely explains the rationale for each step, illustrates its implementation, provides a checklist of substeps, and points to authoritative resources supporting its recommendations.

It also includes templates to guide employers in communicating news of a death to employees and to the public.

Gloucestershire Police Commissioner Martin Surl explains the importance of the guidelines for law enforcement:

"It's a sad fact, and surprising in this day and age, that ... the [suicide] bereaved are not immediately offered support in the same way as victims of crime. As a result, they may not always receive the help they are entitled to, and this is an area where I hope we can help. Very often a police officer is the first 'official' person they come into contact with, so it's very important [that the police are] equipped to deal with what is always a very difficult and sensitive situation."

Grief after Suicide: Understanding the Consequences and Caring for the Survivors, edited by John R. Jordan and John L. McIntosh, is a groundbreaking book featuring in-depth coverage of every aspect of suicide grief support. The book's goals, according to its editors,

are to establish not only what is known about suicide survivors and postvention efforts to assist them, but also to draw attention to vital information that is not known but would help us to better understand and assist survivors of suicide ... [including] recommendations for future research and postvention goals for the future.

The editors and more than 40 contributors to the book's chapters solidly accomplish those goals, covering in-depth and comprehensively the most up-to-date information about an impressive range of topics of interest to people working with the suicide bereaved. The editors begin by asking and attempting to answer several fundamental questions:

Develop consensus guidelines for the creation and implementation of effective, comprehensive support programs for survivors of suicide loss. The Guidelines will serve as a crystallizing benchmark for organizations, communities, states, and the nation for the development of a support infrastructure for survivors of suicide loss.