Dissemination of the safety planning intervention(SPI) to university counseling center clinicians to reduce suicide risk among college students.

Objective: Suicide risk on college campuses remains a pervasive problem. Structural deficits in
current clinical care models often result in sub-optimal treatment for suicidal students. This study
reports on the feasibility, acceptability and utility of the Safety Planning Intervention (SPI), a
brief, empirically-validated, clinician-administered suicide prevention intervention, in a
university counseling center (UCC) setting.
Methods: Twelve university counseling center direct service staff completed a 2-hour training
in SPI. Participants reported on suicide intervention practices, training needs, and confidence at
baseline and 10 weeks post-training. Acceptability, utility, and frequency of SPI use were
assessed at follow-up.
Results: All clinical staff attended the training and found it useful, reporting that confidence in
managing suicide risk increased as a result. Two-thirds of staff implemented SPI least once.
Conclusion: Results suggest that SPI is a feasible, acceptable, and useful suicide intervention