Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training was identified by the community as an action, that when combined with other actions in our community, has a reasonable chance of making a difference in the number of residents who report they did not receive mental health care or counseling that was needed in the past year in our community. This is a new strategy in our community. Examples of gatekeeper trainings include QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer), and ASIST.

The priority population for this strategy is low-income and/or geriatric populations, and the strategy aims to make a difference at the community, organizational, and individual levels. Implementation will take place within the community at various organizations who will benefit the most such as our first responders, Health and Human Service departments, homeless shelters, senior centers, and safety net organizations.  

One of the main focuses for this strategy is to eliminate the obstacles to optimal health that our priority populations may experience. By ensuring staff on the first line are adequately equipped to handle crisis, we are ensuring all community members are provided with the resources they need.  

Evaluation Plan:

We plan to evaluate the impact of this strategy through the use of Results-Based Accountability^TM to monitor specific performance measures. We will be monitoring How Much, How Well and/or Better Off Performance Measures. Our evaluation activities will be tracked in the Work Plan table, above. Impacts will be presented to key partners to discuss what is working and what is not working.

Sustainability Plan:

The following is our sustainability plan for this strategy: 

• Sustainability Component 1: Use program measures to ensure ongoing effectiveness and demonstrate success to key community stakeholders.
  • We will provide quarterly reports to key stakeholders to ensure successes are known. 
• Sustainability Component 2: Identify champions who strongly support our strategy.
  • As successes arise, we will use these as avenues to identify champions of our strategies to help build support among our community members and organizations.