School Social Workers' Experiences and Beliefs about Working with Suicidal Youth

Background & Purpose: Child and adolescent suicidal behavior is a national and preventable public health problem (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2008). School staff members are an important component of suicide prevention and intervention efforts. Although school social worker (SSWs) are likely to play an important role in suicide and concomitant issues due to their focus on, and work with, high-risk students (Constable, 2008), their involvement is currently undocumented. The purpose of this study was to document SSWs' experience, beliefs and attitudes about working with suicidal students at the elementary school (ES), middle school (MS), and high school (HS) level.

Methods: Data were collected between January and March 2008 from 399 SSWs from 9 of the 11 member states of the Midwest School Social Work Council, representing SSWs in suburban (49.7%), urban (26.6%), and rural (23.6%) schools, and elementary schools (37.8%), middle schools (32.3%), and high schools (29.8%). The majority of the respondents were White (87.2%) and female (88.5%), with an average age of 45.4 years (SD = 11.2), and 12.8 years of practice experience (SD = 8.5). Respondents provided raw numbers for students they worked with who made suicidal threats, attempted suicide, were hospitalized for suicidal risk, and who died by suicide. Respondents rated their level of agreement (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree) on six questions about their attitudes and beliefs about working with suicidal youth (e.g. I feel confident identifying risk factors for suicidal behavior; I feel prepared to work with suicidal students).

Results: Univariate analyses indicated that in the previous two years SSWs reported working with at least one student who: threatened suicide (88%); attempted suicide (50%); was hospitalized for suicide risk (64%); or died by suicide (10%). Consistent with existing literature, as the school level increased from ES to MS to HS, so did the percentage of SSWs who reported working with youth in all four categories. ANOVAs with post-hoc analyses using Tukey HSD indicated that SSWs at the HS level reported significantly more (p<.001) experience providing immediate counseling during a suicidal threat, working with youth with non-fatal suicide attempts, or arranging for hospitalization due to suicide risk, than SSWs at the MS and ES levels. Rates of agreement for the six questions about SSWs attitudes and behaviors approached or exceeded 90% for all questions except for #10—“My graduate training prepared me to work with suicidal youth” (57.6%). MANOVA indicated that, across school levels, there were no significant differences in beliefs, attitudes, confidence, and preparation, Wilks's λ = .947, F(12, 754) = 1.72, p = .058, partial η² = .027.

Conclusions and Implications: Compared to extant literature, SSWs reported working with more suicidal youth and were more likely to feel confident and prepared to work with suicidal youth than school staff members from other disciplines (Debski et al., 2007; Feldman & Freedenthal, 2006; King et al., 1999; King & Smith, 2000). Given their importance in working with suicidal youth, future research should identify SSWs' skills and knowledge in suicide prevention and intervention.