Congratulations, as your installation’s POC for the suicide prevention briefings you are part of the Air Force Suicide Prevention Program (AFSPP), a program of high importance to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) and the Air Force. Since 1996 suicide prevention has been a priority for the CSAF, so much so, that on a weekly basis he is briefed on suicide within the Air Force. Your efforts help ensure the success of the program and the safety of our airmen.

1. Go to the AFSPP Overview. Examine the AFSPP mission and goals, program history, PPTs detailing recent accomplishments and current initiatives, as well as information presented at the AF Community Information and Action Board (CAIB).
2. Look over the Frequently Asked Questions section to become familiar with questions your audience may pose.
3. Examine the Products page to identify the most current Community Suicide Prevention Briefing.
4. Review the Policy and Guidance section to identify AFIs and memos that may assist you.
5. Become familiar with the Resources page and the assistance it can provide you and your installation.
6. Look over the Press section, it has articles that you can alter and place into your base paper.

1. Read AFI 44-154 Suicide and Violence Awareness Education
2. Read HSI Element OPS.7.1.2 Suicide and Violence Awareness Education. There is a lot of information on what is required to be covered in the training and what metrics need to be kept and reported to IDS and MAJCOM.
3. Look at AFI 44-153 Critical Incident Stress Management.

1. Look at what previous AFSPP Managers have accomplished.
2. Examine your predecessor’s PPTs and handouts. Decide how you can improve the products.
3. Ask people both in and outside your squadron what seemed to work best.
4. Find out if the program had squadron commander, First Shirt, and Unit Training Manager buy-in across the base. Ask many people for advice on how to get leadership buy in.

1. The 2003 Community Suicide Prevention Briefing will be created for you (ECD Dec 02). The AFSPP created a sophisticated multi-media presentation using video, graphics, and PPT that can be given in its entirety for the briefing requirement. You are free to add additional information, but the AFSPP product allows Air Force wide resources to be used to create a standardized product everyone can use. Upon completion this product will be found at the AFSPP Website under the Products button.
2. Likewise, a 2003 Leadership Suicide Prevention Briefing is being created for you (ECD Dec 02). This briefing is designed for delivery at Squadron, Group, and Wing commander MAJCOM classes, but you are welcome to present it to any leadership on your base. Like the 2003 Community Suicide Prevention Briefing, the 2003 Leadership Suicide Prevention Briefing will use a multi-media presentation using video, graphics, and PPT. When released, this product will also be found at the AFSPP Website under the Products button.
3. Starting in 2002 the AFSPP assisted suicide prevention program managers by releasing a 2002 Annual Suicide Prevention PPT presentation and guide you could use for creating your own PPT presentations. If you use the 2002 PPT, please revise it since it was meant to assist you in creating your presentations, but not meant for delivery as a 50-slide presentation.
4. You will need to add a workplace violence prevention briefing when delivering the suicide prevention briefing-it was not incorporated into the 2003 products. To assist you we have provided a sample Best Practice from Charleston AFB that you can use to build your workplace violence presentation. The PPT and guide can be found on the AFSPP Website under Products, MAJCOM Best Practices.

1. Where: Decide where you will deliver the briefings. Many people use a combination of commanders' calls, First Term Airmans Centers, and the base theater. Presentations at the squadron appear to work best-such presentations give you contact with the squadron commander, First Shirt, and Unit Training Manager (UTM). By going out into the squadron both the troop’s members and its leaders can associate a name and face with the suicide prevention program.
2. Sign In: Discuss with the UTMs how people will sign in. Some bases have a roster in the back of the room that people sign in according to squadron. After the training the sign in sheets are sent to the squadron UTMs to be tracked.
3. When: Tell commanders you are available 24/7 to train anyone, anywhere, anytime. You want to convey the impression you WANT to work with them. Every 24 hours squadron commanders are given 25 hours of work to do. They will respond more favorably to you when they believe you are trying to be flexible.
4. Alternate Trainers: Get alternates trained to deliver the briefing when you can't. If you are not delivering the training yourself, drop in on the training several times to ensure that the content/delivery is what you expect.
5. How Long: Be assertive, you need 30 minutes to perform a quality presentation. Emphasize the presentation is about more than suicide, its on how we as a community take care of one another. If needed, send them General Foglesong’s 15 Jul 02 memo where he requests commanders allocate at least 30 minutes for the briefing.
6. Suicide Event Surveillance System 2 (SESS2) Reports: Each base has two mental health POCs authorized to complete the SESS for attempted suicides. Identify who your two individuals are and ensure the SESS2 is completed for every attempted suicide. Only those two authorized individuals have access to the SESS2 website for entering data: https://sess.afms.mil/sess2/login/login.cfm The OSI completes the SESS2 on every completed suicide.

1. Once you have fleshed out your program write up your training plan and send it to your base IDS for approval. This is an HSI requirement and will be looked at when they come to your base.
2. Get a letter of appointment from the IDS for you and anyone else that will be doing the training.

1. Try to get at least 25% or your training done each quarter. Do not wait until the end of the year-too many agencies are trying to cram a lot of training into every Dec.
2. Review the metrics reporting requirements in the AFI.
3. Near the end of the year, (September, October) you need to find a way of letting the squadron commanders know how their squadrons are doing on the training. Using a red light, yellow light, green light slide that the Wing/CC shows at Wing Standup every week has been useful. None of the squadron commanders want to have a red or yellow light shown for their squadron.

The suicide prevention work you are doing is very important. The CSAF and the leadership all the way down the ladder to you value the program. Thanks for the great job you are going to do.