The Statewide Suicide Prevention Council has issued its first annual progress report on its five-year suicide prevention action plan. One highlight: more than 1,800 Alaskans were trained in suicide prevention in 2012. “Obviously we still have a long way to go, but by looking at the measures in the plan, we can see we’re making significant strides,” said Kate Burkhart, the Council’s executive director. The report, Casting the Net Upstream: Annual Implementation Report 2012, is available on the Council’s website. So is the action plan, Casting the Net Upstream: Promoting Wellness to Prevent Suicide. The action plan has six broad goals, and the implementation report measures progress using several benchmarks per goal. For example, calls to Careline, the statewide suicide prevention line, increased 35 percent from the end of 2010 to the end of 2012, reflecting both increased efforts to publicize the resource and a willingness by Alaskans to reach out. Other areas of progress include gathering more information on risk factors and improving the usability of data collected on suicide. The Council invites all Alaskans to do one of the activities in the state suicide prevention plan as a step toward the first goal, “Alaskans learn and understand that suicide is preventable.”
Population of focus: People of the state of Alaska
Links to resource:
- Annual Progress Report, Casting the Net Upstream: Annual Implementation Report 2012
- Action Plan, Casting the Net Upstream: Promoting Wellness to Prevent Suicide
Date: 2013
Organization: (Alaska) Statewide Suicide Prevention Council