Key Insights from Lives Worth Living Book Release & Author Discussion
image from touchstone foundation
Good afternoon beautiful people,
As mentioned in the last post, My Mind My Funk will be attending four events this Suicide Prevention Month.
The first stop was a book release and author discussion hosted by Touchstone Foundation at the Lancaster Public Library. The event began with Touchstone’s Executive Director discussing protective and risk factors for children and youth, followed by a program manager sharing insights from their Rise Above program, before the featured book’s co-authors were introduced.
If you or someone you know needs help, please visit our Crisis Support Directory to find a helpline near you.
Key Takeaways from the Discussion
Lives Worth Living: Applying Zero Suicide as a Prevention Approach for Schools highlights ways schools can be champions in youth suicide prevention. The book is co-author by school counselor Stephen Sharp and nationally certified school psychologist Dr. Perri Rosen, and will be available in November (pre-order now).
I haven’t read the book yet, so the takeaways below are notes from the discussion (with my thoughts in brackets)
1. Fire Safety and Building Lives Worth Living
Sharp read an excerpt comparing suicide prevention to fire codes and safety.
The aspiration: to have suicide prevention so embedded in systems that it is “invisible,” just like sprinklers, alarms, and exit signs.
Prevention shouldn’t be only about stopping suicide, but also creating lives worth living.
(I really liked this reframe. It shifts prevention from being a one-day, reactive event to a proactive, ongoing initiative. It asks us to consider how government systems, school environments, and community structures contribute to making life meaningful and supportive, which in turn helps prevent suicide.)
2. The Framework
The book introduces a 7-component framework, adapted from Zero Suicide models used in behavioral health. (I’m not familiar with this framework, but I plan to explore it further.)
Historically, suicide prevention has focused on high-risk care settings.
Research suggests that around 80% of people who die by suicide have seen a healthcare provider at some point before their death (I’ll fact-check this statistic).
The current shift is upstream, toward protective systems that reach people long before a crisis occurs.
3. The Role of Schools
Schools are uniquely positioned to support suicide prevention since students spend much of their time in educational settings. Strategies discussed included:
Relationship mapping: ensuring every student has a trusted adult. (It’s important to balance this with teachers’ workloads and available resources.)
From treatment to care: moving beyond reactive interventions to creating safe, supportive environments.
Capacity building: using assessment tools, organizational self-studies, and tracking key data (like attendance) to proactively identify and support students at risk.
4. Risk and Protective Factors
Moving beyond pathology means shifting the focus from “what’s wrong with kids” to broader systems-level issues.
Key topics discussed included bullying, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and school climate, highlighting that prevention must address the environments in which youth live and learn.
5. Continuing the Conversation
Suicide prevention is not a one-time fix or a simple checkbox for faculty and staff.
It requires ongoing dialogue, regular re-evaluation, and systems that evolve to meet students’ changing needs.
Too often, youth perspectives are missing in prevention models. The discussion emphasized including lived experience—from students, teachers, and others directly impacted.
If you found these insights helpful, Lives Worth Living will be available in (pre-order now). I will be sharing additional posts on youth suicide prevention and youth mental health as I continue learning and participating in events and activities.
If you or someone you know needs help, please visit our Crisis Support Directory to find a helpline near you.
Until then, catch you in the next post.
Sending love and light,
Sitawa
