Our Mission

Forefront Suicide Prevention is a Center of Excellence at the University of Washington. Our mission is to help people take action to prevent suicide in their communities.

Our Vision

To foster a world that openly addresses suicide and mental health with compassion, and where every individual acts on their capacity to prevent suicide.

Our Approach

We take a public health approach to suicide prevention, following the socioecological model to create change. Our approach is Innovate, Incubate, Scale.

Innovate – develop innovative approaches to suicide prevention, grounded in evidence.

Incubate – pilot, review, iterate, to hone the innovation into a robust program.

Scale – partner with other organizations (such as state agencies) to ensure the critical information and learnings from our programs is distributed to a much wider audience statewide or beyond.

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Suicide touches many lives. As research and dialogue grow around this tragic cause of death, we at Forefront Suicide Prevention are focused on championing suicide prevention, leading systemic change, and partnering with communities and organizations to help them reduce suicide.

Our Programs

School Based Programs

Our school-based programs are grounded in the work of Forefront in the Schools, a comprehensive, multi-year suicide prevention program that provides schools with a framework and tools to address youth suicide and suicidal behavior through an integrative approach. Over 60 schools have joined the program since its inception in 2015. In addition, we work with partners such as the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and the Behavioral Health Navigators in Washington’s Educational Service Districts to scale our expertise and learnings by developing trainings and materials for comprehensive suicide prevention, based on the programming we have developed through Forefront in the Schools.

Lethal Means Safety

We provide education on “lethal means safety” as a way to help reduce both suicides and self-harm through safe storage practices, and give out free lockboxes for medications and firearms to encourage secure, proactive storage for both firearms and medications

Training

Equipping professionals, families, colleagues, and community members with suicide prevention training helps to connect suicidal individuals with the support they need. Forefront’s Training & Technical Assistance program develops and delivers our flagship Forefront Suicide Prevention LEARN® training and other trainings related to suicide prevention (including grief after suicide and firearms organizations) to organizations and individuals across Washington. We work with clients to develop customized trainings for specific audiences, in particular for demographic groups that are at increased risk of suicide due to their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, profession or industry.