Recommended guiding principles for effective suicide bereavement support groups.

Between 2011 and 2012, the members of the AAS Suicide Bereavement Support Group standards workgroup engaged in an iterative process intended to develop guiding principles for suicide bereavement support groups in the United States. The workgroupÕs starting place was Lifeline AustraliaÕs ÒTowards Good Practice: Standards and Guidelines for Suicide Bereavement Support GroupsÓ (Lifeline Australia, 2009 ), and this document could not have been created without reference to that seminal work. These recommended guiding principles are, by design, less prescriptive than are the standards outlined by Lifeline Australia. The principles were composed using language and ideas that can be used by those interested in developing a group and/or improving the quality of an existing group, and they can serve as criteria for what one could reasonably expect in terms of the nature and quality of these groups.

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