Suicide and Homicide

Hello everyone,

I'm excerpting from an email sent yesterday:

"What is the protocol for reporting a student who expresses suicidal/homicidal ideation. I had one student over a year ago who is still here and there was no one who could give me a definitive answer. ... Is there some legally required form? What do I need to do to adequately document this? I would just like to know what bases I need to cover and how quickly does this need to be done. It was kind of upsetting to know that I had a student in this situation and no one knew where to refer me or how quickly it needed to be done."

I called Rich Lieberman who works for the District Suicide Prevention unit and proposed this question to him. What follows is an attempt to summarize his information:

With the student mentioned above, there are two problems: suicide and homicide. They must be considered separately.

In the case of the homicidal ideation, school officials must first make a threat assessment. What is the level of threat? Is the student simply expressing, inappropriately, a vague discontent? If it's obviously so, then teach the student to be appropriate in such expressions. If you have any doubt about the level of threat (it may be ambiguous enough that you can't say for sure that it's innocuous), then refer the student to the proper person.

The choice of whom to refer to depends on what sort of threat is made and how it is made.

A general kind of threat ("I'm so frustrated I could blow the place up") is different from a targeted threat ("I'm going to kill Combe"). Unless you're absolutely positive that the threat is not credible, you should make a referral. The general threat could be referred to the deans if the immediate danger is low (there are liabilities that I will discuss below).

If the potential danger is higher or you are unsure, the referral must be made to the school police.

If the threat is a targeted threat, meaning that it is directed at a specific person, then both the targeted person and the school police must be informed.

In the case of suicide threats, the school will make an assessment of whether the threat is low, moderate, or high. I think that the best person to make that assessment would be the school psychologist, but you may refer to the school nurse. All suicide ideation must be taken seriously. (I would draw a line at something like quoting from a movie, "She's so refined, I think I'll kill myself." That's a quote from a film, not ideation. Students sometimes quote songs without ideation. If you are not certain which they are doing, make the referral.)

Watch for threats of suicide or violence in the students' writing. If it is written, you must obtain a copy (you don't need permission for a copy of such a threat), and you must ensure that the copy of the threat was delivered to the proper person; you should probably do it yourself.

Your liability is the same as the school's liability. According to Mr. Lieberman, schools are successfully sued for two common things: not notifying authorities, parents, and potential victims; and not supervising high risk students. (The latter problem arises when teachers send high risk students out either unsupervised, or supervised by another student. The high risk student then hurts him/herself or others, and the school is liable. If someone in your classroom could be a high risk, then make sure that an adult authority in the school is constantly supervising them.) Parents must be notified in any case of moderate to high risk of suicide. High risk students must always be supervised.

If you have any questions, you may visit the website of the Office of Crisis Counseling and Intervention Services at http://notebook.lausd.net/portal/page?_pageid=33,259455&_dad=ptl&_schema=PTL_EP, or call (213)-241-2174. You may contact Rich Lieberman at (310)-650-1888. Mr. Lieberman recommends contacting David Holmes, of Local District 5, at (323)-224-3100.

Here is the District Suicide Prevention unit: SUICIDE PREVENTION 6651 BALBOA BLV. (818) 705-7326

School police are at extension 2055.

Jeff Combe