Advanced Topics in Community Change

Topic Description: This course provide students from a variety of clinical and education settings 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 invite collaborations and learning to spur local action based on scientific best practices. In this way, the course invites students to translate suicide research into community practice.

Course Objectives:

1. Discuss the meanings of suicide from a variety of perspectives and consider why it matters.
2. Identify effective suicide prevention strategies across the prevention spectrum: universal, selective, indicated.
3. Explore the application of universal and selective (prevention and postvention) at interpersonal, family, institutional and community levels.
4. Consider community mobilization as a way to develop communities of practice to address complex issues like suicide.
5. Explore how to translate evidence-based suicide prevention strategies into practice in various settings.
6. Identify specific needs and priorities for change to prevent suicide and promote mental health in the clinical and/or educational setting in which they work.
7. Describe their own professional roles within historical, political and social contexts in order to cultivate cultural humility and increase responsiveness.
8. Plan and implement a community learning process in a group in which the student is a member.