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Suicide is a leading cause of death among people who abuse drugs and alcohol, but NDARC’s Professor Shane Darke says there is little consistency in how drug services manage suicide risk. He and Dr Joanne Ross led a study of residential AOD rehabilitation services in Australia¹, which highlighted that many services did not have clear documented policies and procedures in place. The Suicide Assessment Kit (SAK): A comprehensive assessment and policy development package is designed to address this gap.

The kit consists of a Suicide Risk Screener, a Suicide Risk Formulation Template as well as supporting documents to manage suicide risk. It also contains a Suicide Policies and Procedures Pro-forma to ensure that appropriate policies are in place to support staff using the SAK tools. Three videos provide comprehensive instructions about how to use the SAK, role-plays demonstrating the use of the Suicide Risk Screener, as well as interviews with AOD treatment providers about their process of implementing the SAK into their service.

One of the providers who have trialled the SAK is Triple Care Farm in New South Wales.  Sarah Green, Senior Psychologist at Triple Care Farm said, "The SAK has been an invaluable asset to our service, guiding policy and procedure around suicide assessment and intervention, and training our staff in a common language and approach to helping clients at risk of suicide. It has also helped our service move from a MA to EA rating in several accreditation categories." 

Professor Darke hopes the kit will soon be used by many treatment services across Australia. “It is our hope that the SAK will make a significant contribution to the assessment and managementof suicide risk within treatment services.”

The kit will be formally launched at the NDARC Annual Research Symposium on Tuesday, 15 September 2015 in Sydney. 

The SAK and accompanying videos are now available for download from the NDARC website at http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/suicide-assessment-kit.