For Professionals
This area is for professionals who come into contact with or provide support to people bereaved by suicide. Effective support after a suicide is key to helping people cope with, and eventually heal from, their traumatic loss. Suicide “postvention” can also prevent further suicides within the family and community. Every interaction with the bereaved can make a meaningful difference in their healing.
What is Suicide Postvention?
Postvention refers to activities that reduce risk and promote healing after a suicide death. Although postvention is implemented after a suicide it is essential that we prepare for postvention before a suicide.
How is Suicide Bereavement Different?
Bereavement after suicide shares characteristics with other types of bereavement, yet it is also different. Understanding how and why it differs is helpful when supporting people who have suffered a loss from suicide.
Support for Loss Survivors
The Alliance of Hope provides healing support for people coping with the shock, excruciating grief, and complex emotions that accompany the loss of a loved one to suicide.
U.S. National Guidelines
In 2015, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention released the first-ever U.S. national guidelines for suicide postvention: “Responding to Grief, Trauma, and Distress After a Suicide”.
Resources for Professionals
Although this is not a clearinghouse for all professional resources, we share some of the key postvention tools created by organizations dedicated to shaping best practices in this growing field.