PROTECT | Values Guided Suicide Prevention

Would love to hear your thoughts... Following two days of 7 SAFE Steps training, we caught up with our four professional actors who brought to life Sandeep in the simulations. They are the fabulous 4: Tegan Braithwaite, Charlie Baz, Sami Afuni and Kyra Thompson. This is an opportunistic recording of the debrief and the feedback they provided. 7 SAFE STEPS is a 7 session safety protocol for mental...

Would love to hear your thoughts... In the lead up to a case study, Manaan delves deep into Personality Disorders and talks about all 10 conditions covering clusters A, B and C in this episode. Cluster A These personality disorders are characterized by odd or eccentric behaviour. People with cluster A personality disorders tend to experience major disruptions in relationships because their behavio...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Yvette Bonilla, LMSW, is the Owner and CEO of Suicide Care Consulting Services. She has seen firsthand the fateful effects of the revolving door effect and how it can rattle the lives of clients, the work and motivation of providers, the cost labor for leaders, and the reputation of the hospital system.  Mrs. Bonilla is a thought leader in the suicide care space...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Building on the qualitative theme of Experience in the AWARE framework is the phenomenon of Creep Crash Crawl. The episode describes how risk taking gradually creeps up due to suicide being a rare event, rare events cause confirmation bias, what I decided clinically was the right decision... This results in a Creep up of risk taking which is inevitably followed...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Experience is the final AWARE factor. In this episode Manaan explores in detail the different ways in which experience generalises: Experience of the same patient over time Experience of a diagnostic group Experience of a demographic group Experience of supporting people in suicidal distress In the final half Manaan shares how the professional or personal experi...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Dr Miguel de Seixas, Head of Psychiatry at Family Medical Practice in Vietnam shares valuable insights from his journey (Cambridge to Saigon). Miguel talks about how Psychiatric practice in Cambridge and Saigon are similar but also different. The foundation of our practice i.e. connecting with kindness and compassion with the pain that the person is suffering wi...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Are you eliciting an agenda in the referrer, patient or carer? And whatever you elicit is that impacting the way in which you listen to the person's story i.e. does it affect your clinical decision. Agenda is the third of the five AWARE factors and it was quite obvious that assessors were responding to agendas they perceived, sometimes positively but often...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Episode 16 explores how assessors rate suicidality in different kinds of presentation i.e. weighting. The AWARE study established that the weighting of suicidality could be impacted by: Diagnosis (Personality Disorder and Substance misuse counted for less) Course (Acute trumped acute on chronic, which trumped chronic)  Social Causation (Carried less weight than...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Neurodivergent people in a neurotypical world face unique challenges when navigating a suicidal crisis. The busy, bright, noisy Emergency Department does not serve as a safety scaffolding, if anything could perpetuate the crisis or actually cause a melt down while waiting. Shazzy shares many such insights both from her lived and carer experience as well her quar...

Would love to hear your thoughts... This episode introduces the listeners to a key concept, the 2 mental spaces in which an assessor operates in an assessment. Rational - facts followed by decision Rationalizing -  decision followed by fact selection Manaan uses a range of practical examples to elaborate decision making processes including Festinger's original research from 1954 and the fasci...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Professionals need a good understanding of self before they can understand others. AWARE protects against undue influences in the act of clinical decision making. Intended to make practice safer, its use in clinical supervision or multidisciplinary case reviews should bolster practice by making individuals and/or teams who assess people in suicidal crisis, mindf...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Episode 13 introduces the ASSESS module and provides a broad overview of the 6 chapters in ASSESS. It then dives into attitudes towards suicide. The key messages to remember are: Stop – Pause Attitudes towards suicide influence decisions,  Attitudes towards suicide influence rapport and empathy,   Attitudes towards suicide influence care and support we offer. Re...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Dr Stan Steindl is an Australian clinical psychologist with over 20 years experience as a therapist, trainer and researcher. He is has an active clinical practice and is passionate about motivational interviewing (MI) and compassion focused therapy (CFT). And he teaches and presents on these topics around the world! Stan shares some deep insights about Motivatio...

Would love to hear your thoughts... In this episode Manaan reveals the 3 practice shifts that lie at the foundation of a new program called 7 SAFE Steps. The are: Prediction to Prevention Past to Future Deficits to Assets These 3 shifts will bring progress to the practice of care provision for those in suicidal distress, they are an automatic consequence of the mindset shift from top to TAP.  Conn...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Meet Ashley P Evans, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner from Waco, Texas. Here is a bit about Ashley in her own words: I am from Auburn, Alabama... WAR EAGLE ! I received my Bachelors degree from Florida State University... GO 'NOLES ! When I initially went to college, I was Pre-Med Psychology, but it didn't take me long to convince myself th...

Would love to hear your thoughts... The episode brings together the key messages from all 10 episodes. It can be used as a refresher or for someone new to PROTECT it will provide a quick overview of the CORE module Connect with Assoc Prof Manaan Kar Ray on Linkedin Follow us on www.progress.guide

Would love to hear your thoughts... Episode 10 will be diving deep into the 5 values of Relational Safety: Courage Curiosity Compassion Collaboration and  Commitment  and translating these values into action.  Episode 10 is full of catch phrases, some of the highlights are, patient is not in the way, patient is the way, listen with fascination, mind open – mouth shut, cant walk through water witho...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Part 2 of Empathy in Action introduces the Values of Relational Safety:   Courage: to be present and suspend the desire to help   Curiosity: in taking the time to listen and recognizing reasons and emotions    Compassion: in sharing the person’s darkness without judgement    Commitment: to reframe suicidal thoughts and acts as a desire to be pain-free  Collabora...

Would love to hear your thoughts... In part 1 of Empathy in Action, the listener is introduced to the key mindset shift that underlies Relational Safety, from TOP to TAP. This supports a transition from attempting to establish " what's the matter with you " to " what matters to you ". Providing healthcare professionals contemporary knowledge about how the forms they fill c...

Would love to hear your thoughts... The episode provides a novel way to describe risk and steers professionals away from high, medium and low risk stratification. The listener will be introduced to: Longitudinal Risk Unaddressed Risk Cross-sectional Risk On the way to formulating an opinion of clear and imminent risk. This is a far more nuanced approach and a meaningful attempt at conducting a per...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Proactive Detection of Clear and Imminent Risk of Suicide In the first past of Risk Rethink, the listener is introduced to Shneidman's cubic model and the three psychological forces of: Psychache - Press - Perturbation This lays the foundation for a discussion about the continuum of risk. Listeners are also urged to allow their knowledge of warning signs to...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Optimise Pain Relief introduces a pain based narrative as a conversational strategy to discover common ground. The person in suicidal distress wants to be pain free and the professional wants to help them be pain free. Despite this common ground why do so many professionals end up in a power struggle with the person they are supporting? The episode will guide pr...

Would love to hear your thoughts... The episode describes the different ways in which the Care Compass can be used: To capture hope To gain a better understanding of risk and safety To find common ground when there is a difference of opinion To address culture The episode finishes with a discussion on the challenges of recovery oriented care in community mental health care and how the care compass...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Episode 03 introduces the Care Compass, a conceptual visual conversation aid to talk about recovery and current care delivery. The difficult balancing act between risk and recovery intensifies many folds in a suicidal crisis. This can only be struck in partnership with the person and their family and to get them on board and to understand the finer nuances of re...

Would love to hear your thoughts... Episode 02 introduces the four chapters in the CORE Module and the nautical metaphor: Navigating Rocky Waters Navigating Rocky Water is about recovery. We all need hope, it is central to our mental health and well being. Recovery for those with mental illness (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia, bulimia, borderline personality disorde...