BREAKING DOCTRINE: New Suicide Prevention Regs

Just out today on the Army Publications web site (www.armypubs.army.mil) one new item of doctrine on suicide prevention and plus one rescinded and another superseded.

• DA PAM 600-24 (Heath Promotion Risk Reduction and Sucicide Prevention) is superceded.

• Army Directive 2023-12 (Ask, Care, Escort (ACE) Suicide Prevention Training) which just came out last month is rescinded.

• They are replace by: AR 600-92 Army Suicide Prevention Program.

Paragraph 1-10 includes this synopsis of the program’s seven primary strategies to mitigate suicide, which get deep into key factors we know drive suicide, like finances and relationships and social media.

(1) Strengthen financial readiness.

(a) Improve financial readiness (Army Financial Readiness Program).

(b) Increase household economic stability (credit monitoring).

(2) Strengthen access and delivery of care.

(a) Reduce stigma by modeling help-seeking behaviors.

(b) Increase care access through referring at-risk Soldiers.

(3) Create protective environments.

(a) Reduce access to lethal means through increasing safe storage behaviors (medicines and fire[1]arms) and providing lethal means counseling.

(b) Promote unit cohesion through building resilience and life skills that results in measurable skill development.

(c) Promote family advocacy and relationship programs (Army Community Service (ACS), chaplains, MFLCs).

(d) Ensure newly arriving Soldiers and their Families orient to the unit in accordance with AR 600–8–8.

(4) Promote connectedness by implementing policies and activities that increase support, reduce stress, foster camaraderie, and creating a positive environment.

(a) Increase peer support for care-seeking (resilience skills, ask, care, escort (ACE), ask, care, escortsuicide intervention (ACE–SI)).

(b) Build pro-social (bystander) skills (Engage).

(c) Build unit cohesion (physical fitness training, Master Resilience Trainer (MRT), ACE, Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers, Building Strong and Ready Teams).

(5) Teach coping and problem-solving skills (Performance Experts, MRT).

(a) Enhance parenting skills (ACS).

(b) Increase use of resilience techniques (Performance Experts, MRT).

(c) Build financial management knowledge (ACS).

(d) Develop relationship skills (chaplains, ACS).

(e) Prevent and reduce substance misuse (Army Substance Abuse Program (ASAP)).

(6) Identify and support people at risk.

(a) Optimize use of visibility tools (BH Pulse, Commander’s Risk Reduction Toolkit (CRRT)) to identify and refer to clinical and non-clinical services.

(b) Identify signs of suicide risk and refer peers (ACE, ACE–SI, Engage).

(7) Lessen harm and prevent future risk by:

(a) Use of Suicide Prevention Program Coordinator (SPPC) and installation assets in support of commanders and units.

(b) Improve safe reporting and messaging about suicide to support help-seeking efforts and privacy when discussing, responding to, and reporting self-directed harm and prohibited abusive or harmful acts through the media, including social media platforms (Soldiers, Families, and DA Civilians) (Public Affairs Officer (PAO)).

(c) Improve Soldier knowledge of reducing access to lethal means (firearms, ropes/ asphyxiation devices, medications)

Interesting note: One of the appendices to the new AR 600-92, Appendix E, is “Fidelity Monitoring.” Basically, the AR comes with a plan to ensure the plan is working.

Read the whole thing here: