Safety Solutions

Take a few minutes today and review your schools All Hazards Plan! 

Many schools across Pennsylvania have developed an All Hazards Plan (AHP) response to suicide related events. Whether threatened, attempted or completed suicide is a traumatizing event to staff and students. With the recent changes in PA due to  Act 71-2014 Suicide Awareness, Prevention and Response legislation public schools are now required to take significant steps to place a comprehensive plan in place to manage suicide events and students displaying at risk behaviors for suicide. Now that this work is complete be sure to update your AHP to reflect this work. For private schools while you are not mandated to conform to Act 71-2014 there are many positive interventions in the Act that you may find beneficial to incorporate into your response.

Remembering that AHP’s should be kept concise and efficient you do not need to detail your entire Suicide Awareness, Prevention and Response plan, you simply need to reference it. Consider adding a few lines like this “Refer to the Act 71 Suicide Awareness, Prevention and Response plan maintained by the school counselor for guidance.”   This simple statement will often cause key staff to recall that they already have a comprehensive plan in place and save them valuable time trying to develop a strategy on the fly. If you have any questions about this or other issues related to effective All Hazards Plans don’t hesitate to give us a call. This is John Baker for safetysolutions4schools.com. Image courtesy of www.videnox.com

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