Families as Healing Partners: A Collaborative Approach to Addressing Suicidality in Child Counseling

Abstract

Suicide is the second leading cause of death in the United States for youth ages 12 to 17; thus, child counselors are encouraged to gain knowledge and skills to address this public health crisis. A major component of all child counseling practices, and particularly crisis counseling, is family collaboration. Given the dearth of research and scholarship regarding family counseling practices for addressing youth suicidality, we propose a five-week model to support counselors’ systemic healing work: Family Collaboration in Suicide Prevention (FCSP). In this article, we introduce the model through providing (a) strategies for family rapport building, (b) engaging in means reduction with families, (c) developmental considerations for response and assessment practices, and (d) an overview of the model objectives and weekly curriculum.