Precarious spaces: risk, responsibility and uncertainty in school-based suicide prevention programs.
We report on findings from an in-depth qualitative case study designed to closely examine the social practices of planning and implementing a four-part (six hour) classroom-based suicide prevention program within two classrooms in one secondary school in Vancouver, British Columbia. Representing a departure from traditional evaluation research studies in suicidology, we examine how school-based youth suicide prevention programs get brought into being in "real world" contexts. Using a discursive, critical constructionist methodology, we aim to illuminate the complexities of this work. Based on our analysis, we suggest that suicide (and its prevention), in all its complex and culturally situated forms, simply cannot be conceptualized through singular, stable or universalizing terms that transcend time and context. Implications for (re)- conceptualizing suicide prevention education are discussed.
University of Victoria, School of Child and Youth Care, Victoria, BC, Canada. jhwhite@uvic.ca
Jennifer
J
White
Jonathan
J
Morris
D000293:Adolescent; D001955:British Columbia; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012306:Risk; D012572:School Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012574:Schools; D012941:Social Responsibility; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013405:Suicide / Q000523:psychology; D035501:Uncertainty; D055815:Young Adult; D000092864:Suicide Prevention