At last week’s annual kick-off breakfast for the Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention Connection Lab presented selected findings from the focus groups that we have been conducting with the Greater Boston Regional Suicide Prevention Coalition over the past two years. Following an overview of what the regional prevention coalitions across the state have been doing this year and a presentation of the most recently available suicide data for Massachusetts (2014 data), I shared a very short summary of focus group findings and urged communities across the Commonwealth to consider how they might use the information to advance suicide prevention for diverse populations in their regions.
In addition to sharing many of the barriers to service that emerged across cultures and the many recommendations that were mentioned by more than one cultural community, I encouraged service providers, community members and legislators to use the findings to spark conversations about culturally-appropriate suicide prevention in their regions. While the focus group findings may not be generalizable to all populations and the recommendations that we collected may not be appropriate for all settings, they can be used to begin a fruitful conversation about what is indeed appropriate and necessary to improve prevention efforts for specific vulnerable populations across Massachusetts.
The slides from the presentation are posted here and should also be available on the Massachusetts Suicide Prevention Coalition’s website.
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