If We Want to Ensure Healthy Development for Youth, Where Is Social Work in the Field of Suicide Research?

Suicide is a major public health issue affecting millions of Americans every year. It is currently the second leading cause of death in young people under the age of 24, and in 2016, suicide was found to be at the highest national rate in 30 years. It is imperative that growing research efforts are dedicated to understanding and preventing suicide, and social work researchers are well poised to meet these demands. However, results of recent systematic reviews highlighted the dearth of social work authored research on suicide despite the fact that social workers regularly work with those who have been impacted by suicide, and that 78% of social workers report having worked with a suicidal client over the past year. Similar to other areas of research in social work, suicide research is dominated by descriptive and explanatory studies. Particularly lacking from the research are studies that can be used to inform interventions for vulnerable individuals, families, and communities impacted by suicide. Social work clinicians and researchers are uniquely suited to enhance the development and dissemination of information about suicide and interventions to use when working with those impacted by suicide. For example, while many current interventions developed from other disciplines remain intrapersonally focused, social workers bring to the table a focus on culture, family, community, and larger systems as possible points of intervention.

Social work offers a unique, valuable, and important voice in the discussion about suicide, though social work scholarship on the topic remains extremely limited. This roundtable session will initiate a dialogue about the importance and role of the social work perspective in suicide-related scholarship. The roundtable will be organized around the following overarching question: “Where is social work in the field of suicide research?”

The roundtable will bring together experts ranging in rank from doctoral student to endowed full professor in various populations and settings of youth suicide prevention and intervention research, including schools, hospitals, minority youth, and friends and family members of suicidal youth. Presenters will focus attention on the questions that social work research has asked and answered, as well as questions that social work researchers are not addressing. For example, two presenters will address points of connection and disconnection addressing suicide risk in schools and hospital settings. Two other presenters will discuss the pros and cons of how social workers integrate family, friends, and broader social networks into suicide prevention and assessment. Additional presenters will separately address how social workers can improve their work with culturally diverse populations, particularly minority youth, as well as how postvention efforts could be enhanced by more social work involvement. Finally, the panel will offer a call to action for how social work researchers and practitioners can promote adolescent mental health and wellbeing through increased involvement in suicidology, identifying priorities for future research specifically in the areas of universal prevention strategies for those at risk of suicide as well as selective interventions for those impacted by suicide.