Practical Approaches to Suicidality and Safety Planning

Available with English captions and subtitles in Spanish.

Navigate one of the most sensitive and essential areas of mental health practice: suicidality.

From understanding multifactorial risk to developing effective safety plans and managing your own emotional response, this discussion blends professional expertise with human insight, helping clinicians build confidence in the moments that matter most.

Why This Training Matters

For clinicians, the work of suicide prevention is never abstract—it’s intimate, emotional, and profoundly meaningful. This session highlights the need for both structure and empathy, reinforcing that protocols are only as powerful as the compassion behind them.

By examining common clinical challenges—distinguishing acute versus chronic risk, involving families, addressing stigma, and coordinating across teams—this training helps clinicians apply best practices with humanity and confidence.

Key Takeaways

Participants will leave with greater clarity, practical resources, and renewed commitment to compassionate care.

  • Suicide prevention is both science and empathy—structure and presence must coexist.
  • Comprehensive assessment, communication, and documentation form the backbone of effective intervention.
  • Collaborative safety planning empowers patients and protects clinicians.
  • Coordinated teamwork and supervision strengthen prevention and postvention.
  • Self-reflection and peer connection sustain clinicians who do this essential work.

Together, these insights affirm that compassionate, evidence-informed practice saves lives—and supports those who save them.

What You’ll Learn

  • Understand suicide as both a public health issue and a deeply human experience.
  • Identify a range of psychological, social, and cultural factors that contribute to risk.
  • Learn to distinguish between acute and chronic suicide risk in clinical settings.
  • Explore key components of collaborative, strengths-based safety planning.
  • Recognize the role of empathy and communication in building trust and reducing stigma.
  • Strengthen team coordination and postvention practices after a suicide or near loss.
  • Address the clinician’s emotional impact and build resilience through supervision and self-awareness.

Learning Objectives

After viewing this session, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the balance between structured risk assessment and empathic engagement.
  • Implement collaborative safety planning strategies that align with patient goals and strengths.
  • Demonstrate communication skills that foster connection, safety, and clinician confidence.
  • Integrate postvention strategies and interprofessional collaboration into ongoing care.

Who Should Watch

  • Mental health professionals (psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, counselors, and therapists)
  • Pediatricians and primary-care providers
  • Public health professionals
  • Emergency department and crisis clinicians
  • Behavioral health administrators and educators

Event Details

  • Date Recorded: Friday, October 24, 2025
  • Length: 90 minutes
  • Presenters: Mark Longsjo, LICSW, and Curtis Wittmann, MD
  • Availability: Free to watch anytime

Watch this on-demand session and gain practical, compassionate tools for navigating suicidality and safety planning in clinical practice.

Topics Covered During This Training

  • From your perspective, what should we understand about the current impact of suicide, both as a public health issue and as a deeply human one?
  • Knowing that suicide doesn’t stem from a single cause, what do we now understand about the range of factors that contribute to risk?
  • Many people who die by suicide have contact with a health care provider in the months before their death. What does this tell us about where we might find opportunities for prevention?
  • How can a clinician balance the need for careful assessment with the empathy and connection that are so essential in supporting someone at risk?
  • What are some of the key signs that clinicians should be looking for when doing the assessments of suicide risk?
  • How do different warning signs work together to affect the overall risk?
  • How can we distinguish between acute and more chronic risks when it comes to suicide assessment?
  • What role does suicide risk assessment play in determining a patient’s level of care?
  • What kinds of concerns do family members or friends sometimes share that can help identify someone at risk?
  • How does stigma affect suicidality?
  • Would you please talk about suicidality as a potential symptom of a mental health condition, as opposed to an isolated psychological event?
  • Big picture, what mindset or guiding principles do you think clinicians should bring to this process?
  • From a practical, strategic standpoint, can we walk through some of the key steps of building a safety plan?
  • Do you find that there are some common mistakes that newer clinicians might make when developing safety plans?
  • What else should we know about safety planning and having conversations with family members?
  • When it comes to safety planning, when someone feels like they don’t have a support team, how do we help them identify people and create a team?
  • How can providers document a safety plan in a way that’s both clinically useful and legally protective?
  • How can providers work together across teams to make sure safety plans are consistent and effective?
  • What are some of the key non-clinical resources that should be included in a safety plan?
  • How do you encourage patients to actually use recommended resources when in distress?
  • What do we know about the roles that peer groups and volunteer work can play in long-term suicide prevention?
  • What might a clinician be able to do to facilitate a patient’s connection to an outside resource?
  • How do you quickly build trust in an emergency or inpatient setting with those who have had negative experiences in health care environments?
  • For health care workers who aren’t mental health specialists—like dietitians or nurses— what are some questions to ask the patient who might be at risk, and what should be done before the patient leaves the office?
  • Do you find that the health care profession overall is doing a better job today of communicating between team members about these sensitive issues of suicide risk?
  • Is there a good way to assess the level of impulsivity in a patient?
  • What more do you want to say about helping patients get through acute moments of crisis?
  • Any closing thoughts for clinicians who would like to apply this knowledge and continue learning?

The information discussed is intended to be educational and should not be used as a substitute for guidance provided by your health care provider. Please consult with your treatment team before making any changes to your care plan.

Resources

You may also find this additional information useful:

About Mark Longsjo, LICSW

Mark Longsjo, LICSW, is the senior director of McLean SouthEast, a satellite location of McLean Hospital. His area of professional interest is in adult mental health, and he has longstanding clinical presence in McLean’s social work department, human rights committee, inpatient programs, partial hospital programs, and emergency department contracts.

He has extensive experience doing emergency psychiatric assessments of people of all ages and demographics.

About Curtis Wittmann, MD

Curtis Wittmann, MD, has spent most of his career working as a psychiatrist in the Acute Psychiatry Service in Massachusetts General Hospital’s emergency department.

He currently serves as medical director for acute care services for Mass General Brigham Behavioral Mental Health and is the interim chair of Psychiatry at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. He has long focused on addressing problems involving access and acute care for patients in crisis.

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