Advanced Topics in Global Social Work Practice

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death across the globe with 80% of the suicidedeaths occurring in low to middle income countries. Even so, the vast majority of suicide research is conducted in resource-rich nations, and many suicide interventions rely on a mental health infrastructure that is not widely available to most people in the world. The course uses an adult education approach to share best practices from research across a range of prevention strategies, including individual, interpersonal, organizational and community levels and those addressing different levels of need, from health promotion to crisis level. Additionally, successful suicide prevention requires coordination among these multilevel and multi-focused strategies. This course is designed to provide students from a variety of backgrounds with a working knowledge of a range of suicide prevention strategies, a critical perspective to better meet the needs of the communities with which they work—with a focus on low-resourced settings—and to consider how they might institute culturally responsive strategies and community based models intotheir practices and agency context. Many of the examples given will center on rural and remote Alaska Native contexts, and students will be expected to consider their working context, and apply the content in ways that align with their professional and social roles. The course is designed for students to determine for themselves how best to understand and apply the learning about suicide prevention and wellness to their practice.