After a Suicide Loss
Immediately after a death by suicide, there are many practical matters that families will need to attend to and questions they might have about what to do. Grief associated with a death by suicide can be complicated, and also very different to what people experience following death by other causes.
Immediately after a death by suicide, people are often in shock and unable to describe or explain their feelings or make meaning of what has happened. You may need time before you feel ready to examine what has happened, how it has affected you, what it all means, and what you need in order to begin healing.
Guides & Toolkits for After a Suicide Loss
This is a practical guide to help you through… the first few moments, then the first few hours, then the first few days, then the first few years…after the suicide of someone you love.
This guide has been written with the help of many suicide survivors and the health professionals who work with them. We hope it will help you through this difficult time. Please share it with others who may benefit from the information. The guide focuses on the practical matters that survivors need to deal with after a suicide.
By the Suicide Response Initiative of the Calgary Health Region, with support from the Alberta Mental Health Board. Adapted by the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University.
This handbook was written to help you through the death by suicide of your loved one. It contains both practical and personal information, as well as a list of books, websites and support groups, that we hope will help you through your grief. Different parts of this resource may be of help to you at different times.
Immediately after a death by suicide, there are many practical matters that families will need to attend to and questions they might have about what to do. This resource starts with addressing these practical matters. Grief associated with a death by suicide can be complicated, and also very different to what people experience following death by other causes. Immediately after a suicide death, people are often in shock and unable to describe or explain their feelings or make meaning of what has happened. You may need time before you feel ready to examine what has happened, how it has affected you, what it all means, and what you need in order to begin healing.
Klinic Community Health Centre and the “After a Suicide” Handbook Advisory Committee is indebted to the Alberta Health Services, Calgary Health Region, for sharing their resource guide “Survivor of Suicide Handbook”, which helped inform this document.
Suicide in a school community is tremendously sad, often unexpected, and can leave a school with many uncertainties about what to do next. Faced with students struggling to cope and a community struggling to respond, schools need reliable information, practical tools, and pragmatic guidance.
This toolkit was created to help schools determine what to do in the aftermath of a suicide death, and how and when to do it. It is a highly practical resource for schools facing real-time crises. While designed specifically to address the aftermath of suicide, schools will find it useful following other deaths as well.
By The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Suicide Prevention Resource Center
This resource is intended primarily for Early Responders such as: Police, Ambulance, Firefighters, Emergency Personnel, Health Care Providers, Spiritual Care Providers, Medical Investigators, and Funeral Directors who all have close and often immediate contact with survivors bereaved by a suicide loss. However, other service providers may also find this information helpful in the work they do.
This guide offers information about suicide loss and will likely validate and enhance the many helpful things early responders already do. The guide may also offer new insights and guidance on suicide alertness highlighting prevention and intervention resources available, since we know that survivors may be at greater risk of suicide as well.
Developed by the Winnipeg Suicide Prevention Network in partnership with the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention. This guide was adapted from “Supporting Survivors of Suicide Loss, A Guide for Funeral Directors” .
Funeral directors and the funeral services industry serve as a vital line of first response to those impacted by the profound and crippling effects of suicide loss. That’s because suicide claims 80 percent more lives each year in our country than homicide. These 32,000 self-inflicted deaths leave behind much more. Research shows that those closest to someone who dies by suicide are themselves vulnerable to self-harm through substance use disorders and violence that can be self-inflicted—and culminate in suicide.
Because of its profound impact on our nation and its citizens, suicide has recently been identified as a major public health threat, much like diabetes or heart disease. In your close role with survivors of suicide loss in the immediate aftermath, you play a vital and powerful role. And in partnership with other early responders, including clergy and law enforcement, you can lessen the leveling blow that families are dealt when they lose a loved one to suicide. It’s in this role that we applaud you and the vital work that you do in helping prevent suicide in our country and communities.
By Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center.
Additional Links of Interest on this Site:
