5th Annual Summit: Suicide Safer Care in Clinical Practice Incorporating Current Best Practices

A two-day virtual conference designed to strengthen confidence and competence in providing caring, evidence-based services to clients with suicide risk.

Day 1:  Wednesday, March 19, 2025
1:00–5:00 p.m. EDT/10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. PDT

Day 2: Thursday, March 20, 2025
1:00–5:00 p.m. EDT/10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. PDT


Schedule Day 1: Wednesday, March 19


1:00-1:30 pmUnderstanding Suicide to Prevent Suicide: A Clinical Framework

David Klonsky, PhD
Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD


1:30-2:15 pmNew-Generation Treatments (CRP, BCBT, etc.)

Craig Bryan, PsyD, ABPP


2:15-3:00 pmAssessment, Safety Planning, and Treatment Pathways

Gillian Murphy, PhD


3:00-3:15BREAK


3:15-4:00 pm((Trigger Warning:)) Integrating Firearm Safety Discussions in Clinical Practice

Christopher Knoepke, PhD, MSW, LCSW


4:00-5:00 pmTreating Clients with Suicide Bereavement

Noam Schnek,PhD



Schedule Day 2: Thursday, March 20: General clinical considerations and resources


1:00-1:45 pmThe Human Element: Engaging Suicidal Clients

Jonathan Singer, PhD, LCSW


1:45-2:05 pmCreating Safe Spaces for Suicidality Disclosure

Lindsay Sheehan, PhD


2:05-2:30 pmPost-Crisis Reintegration

Marisa Marraccini, PhD


2:30-2:55 pmAdapting Suicide Prevention for Telehealth

Lauren Khazem, PhD


2:55-3:10 PMBREAK


3:10-3:35 pmAddressing Substance Use in Suicide Prevention

Christina Sellers, PhD


3:35-4:00 pmSleep-Focused Approaches to Youth Suicide Prevention

Sally Weinstein, PhD


4:00-5:00 pmAsk the Experts: What Works in Suicide Care (Q&A Session)

David Jobes, PhD, ABPP
David Brent, MD
Jill Harkavy Friedman, PhD


Presenters

David A. Brent, M.D. Academic Chief, UPMC Wester Psychiatric Hospital, Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

David A. Brent, MD is the Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, Epidemiology, and Clinical and Translational Science and Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Psychiatry and School of Public Health. He is the Academic Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital. He directs Services for Teens at Risk, a state-funded program for suicide prevention, education of professionals, and treatment of at-risk youth and their families. His work has focused on the identification of risk factors for adolescent depression and suicidal behavior and on the translation of those findings into clinical interventions. He has helped to establish standards of care for the assessment and treatment of depressed and suicidal youth. Dr. Brent is a member of the Clinical Advisory Board of The Wellness Institute.


Craig J. Bryan, PsyD, ABPP Ohio State University College

Craig Bryan, PsyD, ABPP is the Trott Gebhardt Philips Endowed Professor and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ohio State University College of Medicine, where he is director of the Division of Recovery and Resilience, and the Trauma and Suicide Prevention programs. A military veteran, he is a renowned expert in cognitive-behavioral treatments for military veterans, first responders, and others experiencing suicidal thoughts and post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Bryan and colleagues developed and demonstrated the effectiveness of brief cognitive behavioral therapy (BCBT) for suicidal military personnel.


Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), Columbia University

Jill Harkavy-Friedman, PhD, is the Senior Vice President of Research and leads the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s research program, which funds research grants, offers workshops and training to researchers, and disseminates research findings to increase public awareness and support advocacy. She has published over one hundred peer-reviewed articles and trained clinicians around the nation. In 2022 she was elected to be a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Harkavy-Friedman is an associate professor in the department of Psychiatry of Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is a Member of the Clinical Advisory Board of The Wellness Institute.


David A. Jobes, PhD Chatholic University School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University

David A Jobes, PhD is a Professor of Psychology, Associate Director of Clinical Training at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and Director of the CUA Suicide Prevention Lab (CUA SPL). He is also an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Jobes’ research and writing on suicide have produced well over a hundred peer-reviewed publications, including six books on clinical suicidology.


Lauren R. Khazem, PhD Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

Lauren Khazem, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor and clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Khazem’s research is focused on identifying unique drivers of suicide risk in the disability community and military veterans and personnel. Dr. Khazem integrates these findings into clinical research with the goal of improving the efficacy, accessibility, and reach of suicide prevention assessments and interventions for these populations.


E. David Klonsky, PhD University of British Columbia

E. David Klonsky, PhD is a professor in the department of psychology at the University of British Columbia. His research examines suicide, including the pursuit of parsimonious models of suicide and a better understanding of suicide motivations and warning signs. Dr. Klonsky also pursues research interests in emotion, personality, and assessment, many of which overlap with his work on suicide. Dr. Klonsky serves on the Clinical Advisory Board of The Wellness Institute.


Christopher Knoepke, PhD, MSW, LCSW University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Christopher Knoepke, PhD, MSW, LCSW is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. His research includes how to implement effective methods of preventing firearm injuries, including voluntary gun storage programs and Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs). Dr. Knoepke is also an instructor in Anschutz’s Division of Cardiology, and researches ways to improve the inclusion of patient values and voice in medical decisions.


Gillian Murphy, PhD, LCSW

Gillian Murphy, PhD, LCSW is a psychotherapist with a New York-based practice specializing in suicide care. She is a consultant and trainer of best practices in suicide care. As the Asst. Deputy Director for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (now 988), Dr. Murphy oversaw the development of national standards of excellence and clinical best practices in suicide prevention for telephone, chat, and text-based services. Her blog on Suicide Care in Private Practice has been adapted for Psychology Today.


Noam M. Schneck, PhD Columbia University Department of Psychiatry

Dr. Noam M. Schneck is Assistant Professor of Clinical Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Schneck studies the way that people adapt to the suicide loss of a loved one. Specifically, his research aims to identify unconscious processes of coping with the loss that help people grow and adapt while also allowing them to remain engaged in current life demands. The goal of his cutting-edge research is to ultimately develop a treatment technique that would entrain greater unconscious processing of the loss.


Jonathan B. Singer, PhD, LCSW Loyola University Chicago

Jonathan B. Singer, PhD, LCSW is an associate professor of social work at Loyola University Chicago. His interests focus on family-based interventions for suicidal and cyberbullied youth, service access, and use of technology in education and clinical practice. He is the former president of the American Association of Suicidology. Dr. Singer is the author of Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner’s Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention and the host of The Social Work Podcast. Dr. Singer is a Member of the Clinical Advisory Board of The Wellness Institute.


Marisa E. Marraccini, PhD University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Marisa Marraccini, PhD is the Tarbet Faculty Scholar in Education and an Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Education. Dr. Marraccini’s research focuses on promoting child and adolescent mental health in the context of their daily lives in school settings. She is currently developing and testing a virtual reality intervention to supplement inpatient treatment for adolescents hospitalized for suicide-related crises and leading research that partners with youth to develop and disseminate therapeutic skills by way of social media.


Christina M. Sellers, PhD, LCSW Simmons University

Christina M. Sellers, PhD, LCSW, is an Associate Professor at Simmons University. Dr. Sellers does both qualitative and quantitative research with a focus on the developmental period of adolescence and on the intersection of substance use and suicide. The goal of her research is to develop and test interventions for substance use and suicide among adolescents in a variety of different settings and to develop and test pedagogical approaches to training social workers in suicide prevention skills.


Lindsay Sheehan, PhD Illinois Institute of Technology

Lindsay Sheehan, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of the Center on Health Equity, Education, and Research at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Sheehan conducts research on the stigma of mental illness, suicide, health equity, and the evaluation of peer services for people with mental illness. She developed the Inspiring Change community-based participatory research (CBPR) curriculum and has extensive experience implementing CBPR programming. She is the director of a state-funded program to train certified recovery support specialists and certified peer recovery specialists.


Sally M. Weinstein, PhD University of Illinois Chicago Medical Center

Sally Weinstein, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Illinois’ College of Medicine and Associate Director of its Center on Depression and Resilience (UICDR). She is the Director of Psychosocial Training and a Clinical Psychologist in the Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic (PMDC) and researches the psychosocial treatment of children with bipolar disorder, the assessment and treatment of suicidality within pediatric bipolar disorder, and the influences of parent and child mood disorders on pediatric asthma.


Learning Objectives

Day 1:

  • Describe a model for understanding suicide and list factors that contribute to increased suicide risk.
  • Discuss how clinicians can engage in suicide prevention in their clinical practice
  • Describe the suicidal mode and identify the mechanisms targeted by newly-developed treatments in suicide prevention.
  • Identify core principles that can guide the suicide assessment process and brief interventions to implement to maintain client safety.
  •  Articulate the role of firearms in suicide and how to integrate firearm safety conversations into suicide prevention efforts.
  • Explain the unique emotions that typify suicide bereavement and an approach to facilitate emotional acceptance.

Day 2:

  • Identify suicide-focused care models that fit a clinician’s clinical approach best and ways they can utilize their emotional reactions while working with suicidal individuals.
  • Describe client perspectives on disclosure of suicidality and strategies to increase comfort in disclosure
  • Explain considerations for supporting students returning to school following suicide-related crises and how best practices for student reintegration may be generalized for community reintegration of individuals in all life stages.
  • Identify telehealth adaptations of suicide prevention strategies and how they may be implemented (Describe imminent suicide risk assessment and responses.)
  • Explain the relationship between substance use and suicide and how substance use is a risk factor for suicide.
  • Describe developmental changes in sleep in adolescence, how to assess sleep quality in youth, and intervention strategies to improve sleep in adolescents that may be relevant for suicide prevention.
  • Demonstrate how to ask a client if they are experiencing suicidal thoughts, incorporate one new practice for suicide prevention, and develop a practice plan to put in effect when a person states they have been thinking about suicide


Accreditation Statement

Day 1 C.E. Credit: 4.0
Day 2 C.E. Credit: 4.0

Testimonials

Partnering Organizations

TicketsPrice

Summit Full Access + One-Year Events Membership

- Full Access to the 2-Day Summit
- 8.0 CE Credit (see accreditation statement above)
- One Year of access to all TWI Events ($600 value)

$249.00
(+ $0.00 fee)

Summit Pass + CE Credit

- Full Access to the 2-day Summit
- 8.0 CE Credit (see accreditation statement above)

$149.00
(+ $0.00 fee)

Summit Pass

- Full Access to the 2-day Summit (No CE Credit included)

$99.00
(+ $0.00 fee)
Total: $0.00
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