Community support resource
Occassionally, someone attending SafeTALK training may become upset during the training. The
role of the Community support resource is to be able to intervene with people who identify
themselves as being at risk and they need to be able to provide initial support to people who
discover within safeTALK that they have troubling feelings about a past suicide.
Many times, these needs only become clear during a break or at the end of the training when both
of you can provide help. The general strategy is to provide information to help the person in need
connect with an appropriate resource. Rarely, a need might make itself known to everyone in the
training. Someone who is visibly upset, for example, might run from the room or announce their
distress verbally. The community support resource should make it clear to the person that they are
taking charge of providing help and guide the person in need outside the room where the training is
occurring. As soon as the person in need is provided with information to help them connect with an
appropriate resource, your community support resource can return to the training room and signal
to the trainer that they can announce something to indicate that the need for help has been met:
“Good, things are being taken care of.” You need a signal for those extremely rare situations in
which you cannot get permission from the person in need (almost always because they are too
distressed to deal with your concern to ensure that suicide is addressed openly) to make this
announcement. You will need to make some kind of announcement, lest stigma and taboo be
reinforced. Thus in those extremely rare situations in which you cannot get permission for the
trainer to make a direct announcement, you can make a “hypothetical” announcement: “As I said,
suicide can have a profound effect that sometimes sneaks up on us and that fact can be the single
most important thing to deal with.” Look at your community support resources when you say this.
Some of the time, the person who has received the intervention or support may want to return to
the training. If they have not missed too much, this decision should be supported. They must,
however, be willing to allow your community support resource to announce that a need has been
identified and met, or words to the effect.
If your community support resource is not available, make information about community resources
available early in the training. Put up a list in the training room and draw attention to it as part of
step 1.1. or hand out the copies you made at the beginning of the training.
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Is your community resource able to intervene with people who identify themselves as being at
risk?
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What exactly have we decided to do should a person with thoughts or participant who is upset
make themselves known at the end of or during training?

Who will follow and remain with a person leaving hurriedly during the training?

What will be said to the group once the immediate needs of the person with thoughts, or
participant who is upset, have been addressed?
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Do we agree on who will help if a participant needs assistance after safeTALK is over?
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Have we agreed to a place and time to meet after the training to review any helping situations
and to debrief?