What do you do if a client reveals suicidal thoughts or intentions?

Assess the intensity and urgency of the risk. Check if the client intends to harm themselves. Respect?their feelings. Assure them they're not alone and that support is accessible. Together, create a safety plan including supportive people, coping skills, and emergency contacts. High-risk situations require rapid professional assistance. This may require emergency services or mental health crisis teams. Schedule a follow-up to ensure their safety and support. Stay in touch with their support network and seek professional aid.

If you are a new social worker, the first step is to not freak out! I agree with all the comments stated above about the importance of directly asking about suicidal thoughts, plans, and intentions in order to assess risk level in a non-judgemental way. This can be hard though if you haven’t worked with many people experiencing suicide thoughts before. New social workers can keep in mind that most situations are not immediate risk situations; and SI is often a symptom of an underlying mental health problem. Remember that talking about suicide thoughts helps reduce the risk of suicide. So don’t be too scared if you are starting out. Focus on understanding and validating the clients experiences while assessing their suicide risk level.

If a client discloses suicidal thoughts or intentions, remain calm and empathetic. Assess their immediate safety and connect them with appropriate resources, such as crisis hotlines or mental health professionals. Document the conversation and follow organizational protocols for reporting and intervention.

1) Have you had thoughts or hurting yourself or wishing you were dead? 2) On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 meaning "you're not thinking about it at all" and 10 meaning "I'd do it today," what number are you? 3) Do you have a plan? 4) Assess access to plan (e.g., do they have gun, pills, etc.) 5) If person has plan and intent, urge them to go to ER or, if they refuse, call police. 6) If person has plan but no intent, make safety plan with them, provide them with contact info of who to call, where to go, etc. 7) Schedule f/u appointment within the next week. 8) Continue to monitor and assess at each meeting. 9) Encourage patient to communicate regularly with therapist until more stable, even outside of session through secure email.

I think that learning to sit with this information and managing our own anxiety, before jumping into "action" mode and actually acknowledging both the pain the person is feeling, and the message they are trying to tell us can be really powerful. This can help us to determine the level of risk and how we should consider responding, and it can also help to develop trust and alliance between the patient and the professional

When assessing risk and creating a safety plan, it’s important to consider immediate risk versus chronic risk. Clients can be a low, moderate, high, and immediate risk of suicide. Client can also be at low, moderate, and high chronic risk of suicide. Assessing both types of risk can help you when building a safety plan. Ensuring safety can ranges from facilitating the client getting to an emergency room or inpatient care, to creating a coping skill plan to help them when suicide thoughts come up. You might work to include friend, family, and other medical providers into the coping plan. You may also provide information about emergency services.