Postvention Workshops
CSPCV offers postvention workshops to provide information and guidance to campus teams in developing postvention protocols as part of their comprehensive suicide prevention planning.
Workshops typically are 1-1.5 days and involve bringing together a multidisciplinary team of campus professionals who will be involved in the planning and execution of postvention protocols.
What is Postvention?
Postvention is an organized response and actions taken to support individuals and communities after a suicide has occurred to restore equilibrium on campus. It is a process of being proactive before a suicide death occurs by forming a multidisciplinary team, developing plans and protocols and practicing them in advance, and educating and building relationships with community partners.
The functions of postvention:
- Support loss survivors
- Provide grief and bereavement support
- Actively work with community partners to enhance campus support
- Deploy preventative measures for the community
- Debrief afterward and ensure care of the postvention team.
Workshop details:
If we are meeting with an individual campus, we will tailor the workshop to your specific circumstances and logistics as much as possible and will hold consultation calls before and after as desired. Generally, day one involves providing information and applying it to various scenarios as you consider how to respond on your campus. Day two involves identifying what already is in place on your campus and more in-depth development of components of your postvention plan.
Topics Covered:
- Comprehensive Suicide Prevention Planning
- Postvention Components
- Grief and Bereavement Issues and Supports
- Crisis Response
- Trauma Informed Responding
- Collaborating with Law Enforcement
- Safe-Messaging
- Communications
- Planning for the Future
- Community Resources
- Debrief/Team Care
Who should attend?
We suggest including 8-12 people with at least one from the following or related campus offices. Please contact us with questions or to schedule a workshop on your campus.
- Student Affairs Administration (e.g., Dean of Students/Vice President of Student Affairs/their designee)
- The Counseling Center
- Campus Communications/Public Relations (e.g., whomever would be responsible for writing or sending out notifications to the campus community if a death were to occur, who would respond to media inquiries, who writes on behalf of the President or official university communications)
- Academic Affairs (e.g., an administrator who has insight into communication with faculty, academic requirements, academic affairs policies)
- Campus Security (potentially someone who sits on the Threat Assessment Team, and/or someone who might respond to the scene if a death were to occur on campus)
- Residence Life (someone who has knowledge of residence policies and collaborates with other campus officials)