@benhamill @Qwyrdo actually, yeah, does anyone know if there are suicide hotlines (especially chat suicide hotlines) that make their training materials public?

@nightpool @Qwyrdo @benhamill

saw this a few days ago.
more an insight, but?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnnPECKZlEw

@nightpool @Qwyrdo @benhamill If they do, probably would be a good idea for whoever has access privs to the materials to get trained by the hotline as well, or an equivalent the hotline is ok with

@nightpool @benhamill @Qwyrdo I don't believe there are. I can try to flip through some books this evening and see if there are any chapters that might be relevant to folks. (Though a lot of my reading materials are more distanced and academic.)

@nightpool @Qwyrdo @benhamill Okay, so. This is in more or less order from "hey, I want to read a whole book on this" to "but what do I need in the next half hour?". I'll disclaim that I haven't actually fully read any of these anything near recently, but I did flip through them today. More should probably be said on each, but, well, I have a limited number of characters. Obviously some of these things will be wrong in any given case, and it's important to be flexible.

@nightpool @benhamill @Qwyrdo So the whole-book textbook I've seen on this is "Crisis Assessment, Intervention, and Prevention" (Erford, now published as Merrill Counseling in the 3rd edition). I haven't read that edition, but the earlier ones seemed decent, if extensive. ISBN 0134522710 on the 3/e, doesn't appear available in the usual places for free ebooks, but there are somewhat cheap options. Wouldn't really recommend it unless you're really interested, though.

@nightpool @Qwyrdo @benhamill The "I just want a chapter or so of an academic book" option I'd go for is a chapter out of "Clinical Mental Health Counseling in Community and Agency Settings" (Newsome, also under Merrill Counseling in 4/e). Relevant chapter is 9 in 4/e, 8 in 3/e. Chapters 12+13 in 4/e (11+10 in 3/e) also cover other useful things, and if you've got the 3rd edition, read the epilogue ("Managing Stress and Avoiding Burnout"). Decent if you can find a copy.

@nightpool @benhamill @Qwyrdo The "what do I hand to someone who asks?" option is probably the WHO's Psychological First Aid[1]. It's easy to understand, covers the most important parts (although without as much background), and freely available. Focuses a bit on disaster scenarios, but the meat of it applies pretty universally. If you're pressed for time, chapters 3 + 4 are the most relevant, but the others are important too.

1: http://www.who.int/mental_health/publications/guide_field_workers/en/ , PDFs in 23 langs.

@nightpool @Qwyrdo @benhamill Anyway, that's my list. Hopefully one of those is useful. The WHO pamphlet is probably closest to what you were looking for, the books are good if you want more background or want an overview of literature to help plan. (I'd lean toward getting them from a library rather than buying, depending on your needs, though. They're a bit pricey.)