Frequently Asked Questions
Our suicide prevention workshops cover:
- Warning signs and risk factors for suicide
- Facts about the prevalence of suicide
- Coping skills and resiliency building
- Best practices for talking to and helping someone who may be struggling
- Samaritans’ 24/7 helpline and other community resources
- Identifying trusted adults (in youth workshops, only)
- Step 1: Fill out our request form online.
- Step 2: Our team will respond to your request in 2-3 business days to begin the scheduling process via email.
- Step 3: Once we have agreed upon date and time, our team is available to help you work out any descriptive language for promotion to help share the event details with your group.
For our in-person workshops, we can work with many differently-sized groups, from small and intimate sessions to large presentations. While there is not a limit on the number of attendees, we do want to stress the importance of having groups that are small enough to encourage conversation, as larger groups can be more intimidating and pose their own logistical concerns.
Our preference is to schedule your workshop sometime in the near future, and we like to finalize dates two weeks before the workshop. We want to ensure we’ve allowed the proper time in our calendar for preparation, and allow you enough time to share the workshop information with your group. Reach out to us about scheduling for full availability!
Ideally, we like to use about an hour and a half for a full workshop, though we do have some flexibility. For instance, if your team would like us to present during a one-hour lunch and learn, we can do that! Youth workshops typically last a full class period, but we are flexible and can discuss this more when scheduling.
Our workshops are free! We think it’s important that anyone, regardless of income, is able to access the tools we need to help prevent suicide. If your group feels inclined to contribute a donation to our programs, it is always accepted and appreciated.
Definitely! We frequently work with middle and high schools who schedule multiple sessions over the course of a couple weeks, and we often repeat workshops annually for new classes of students. It’s important to note that these sessions are not extended curriculum; they are instead repeated sessions on the same subject.
Absolutely! Our team uses the same framework for each presentation, but can tailor it based on the needs of your group (i.e. including more information about the prevalence of suicide in medical professionals). When scheduling, please be sure to include any relevant details so our team can best prepare for your group.
While we have very limited availability on evenings and weekends, reach out to us about scheduling so that we can check our calendar!
We provide an optional post-workshop survey that gauges the mental health of students, at a very basic level. If there is anything concerning in these surveys, we will work with the school administrators to get the student’s issue elevated to the proper person (i.e., guidance counselor).
We tailor our workshop content to the age of the audience. We work with folks from teenagers to seniors. For our youth workshops, we prefer the students to be in at least 6th grade, due to the subject matter.
For in-person workshops, we’re available to present in the Greater Boston and MetroWest regions. For virtual workshops, we can reach anywhere you may have a reliable internet connection!
