Course Outline and Topics
Course Overview
Suicidal behaviour is complex. It’s not possible to prevent all suicides, but early intervention strategies and counselling can help save lives.
The Certificate of Suicide Counselling will provide you with the knowledge and skills required to work and engage with people at risk of suicide and serious self-harm.
In this online suicide intervention course you will discover how to increase the safety of individuals at risk of suicide, recognise and respond to crisis situations with confidence, provide interventions to those at risk and apply specialist interpersonal and counselling skills to address suicidal behaviour.
You will also learn how to identify and manage suicide risk in the context of a supportive helping relationship that seeks to work collaboratively with the person at risk to achieve safe outcomes. You will also gain the skills required to provide support for individuals who are experiencing bereavement in relation to suicide.
On completion of this course you will have gained the skills required to work and engage with those at risk of suicide and self-harm and those suffering bereavement due to suicide.
Course Structure
Unit 1 - Increase the safety of individuals at risk of suicide
- Recognise signs of suicide
- Triggers and warning signs
- Grounds for concern
- SOLER acronym
- Questioning techniques
- Suicide risk factors
- Facilitate intervention
- Building empathic relationships
- Chronic pain
- Self-harm
- Suicidal feelings
- Safety plans
- Aggressive clients
- Responding to emergencies
- Foreseeable harm
- Empower the person at risk
- Encourage discussion
- Develop rapport
- Coping strategies
- Mental health issues
- Previous attempts
- Develop support plan
- 6 step referral process
- Document suicide safety plan
- Debriefing
- Supervision and peer support services
Unit 2 - Provide brief interventions
- Assess persons needs
- Behaviours and issues of concern
- Brief interventions
- Relapses
- Assessment flow chart
- Elicit issues of concern
- Risk level
- Resources and intervention strategies
- Health issue awareness
- “Health belief” model
- Contemplating change
- Motivational interview
- Setting goals
- Relapse prevention
- Support and encouragement
- Acknowledgement and reward
- Care plan documentation
- Review client progress
Unit 3 - Provide suicide bereavement support
- Resources and support services
- Facilitate early access to services
- Isolate proactive measures
- Intervention responses
- Postvention
- Suicide prevention
- Client safety
- Document plan
- External support agencies
- Empathic listening
- Facilitate coping mechanisms
- Respect cultural differences
- Refugees and asylum seekers
- Diverse mourning practices
- Responding to grief
- Non-verbal communication
- Worker stress levels
- Legal obligations
- Emotional responses
- Risk management
- Compassion fatigue
- Vicarious traumatisation
- Mirror neurons
- Prevention / coping with burnout
- Professional supervision
- Regular self-evaluation
- Checklists
- Debriefing
Unit 4- Recognise and respond to crisis situations
- Crisis situations
- Signs of safety issues
- Signs of abuse
- Suicide risk factors
- Warning signs of suicide
- Risk management
- Grounds for concern
- Safety concerns
- Empathetic listening
- Building relationships
- Crisis situations
- Assessing suicide risk
- Safety and suicide plan
- Emergency help / medical assistance
- Making informed choices
- Family and friends
- Community services
- Psychological assessments
- Accurate documentation
- Self-care
- Non-crisis situations
- Mirror neurons
- Burnout
- Supervision and debriefing
- Counselling qualifications
Unit 5 - Apply specialist interpersonal and counselling interview skills
- Counselling interview sequence
- Environmental / personal factors
- Cultural considerations
- Disabilities / impairments
- Client-counsellor relationship
- Counselling skills
- Person-centred approach
- Client-centred interactions
- Establish rapport
- Empathy, honesty and openness
- Conflict resolution
- Learning styles
- Communication styles and skills
- Key objectives
- The initial session
- Structured approach
- Specialised counselling skills
- Negotiation techniques
- Promoting self-advocacy / self-care
- Coping strategies
- Responding to distress or crisis
- Self-evaluation / self-awareness
- Professional development plan
- Action learning
- Networking / professional memberships
Assessment
Written assignments and exercises, including short-answer questions, reports/essays and projects. There are no examinations or due dates for assessment.
