This proposal provides for an enhancement of the Phase I core curriculum to include informationon specific sociodemographic groups (women, minorities, elders, juveniles), issues relevant tomyriad legal practice settings (domestic violence), and those suicides which leave a wake of pain andsuffering for communities and families, murder-suicides. Furthermore, the curriculum will addressthe ethical conflicts suicide and mental health awareness presents attorneys in their casedeliberations. As such, the curriculum will target attorneys and administrative law clerks (as asecondary means of also reaching judges) and pretrial services staff in the criminal and civil courtsystems. The final curriculum will be packaged into both an instructor-led continuing legaleducation (CLE) program and a web-based CLE program. Since CLE credits are a requirement ofall new and experienced attorneys in 41 states, including mandatory credits in the ethics andprofessionalism topic area in many states, this commercial mechanism has the potential to reach thetarget population through multiple modalities at a national level. Goals for participants in the PhaseII curriculum include the ability to:Recognize the symptomatic and behavioral indicators of suicide riskAccurately identify individuals 'at-risk' for suicide based on this knowledge, applying behavioraland situational indicators to assist in making this determinationMake appropriate and judicious referrals to qualified mental health personnel for screening andassessment of those individuals identified as being 'at-risk' for suicideUnderstand the ethical issues present when confronted with possible suicide riskRecognize additional needs and considerations when dealing with special situations such as domestic violence and murder-suicideA rigorous research evaluation of the enhanced core curriculum and its modular components,including two Beta-1 and six Beta-2 national multi-site pilot tests, will be conducted. For both setsof tests, evaluation plans have been developed to assess the impact and effectiveness of the training,selection methodology, and diversity within the composition of training participants. In addition,the final curriculum will be integrated into existing curricula in law schools and a learning transferevaluation at three test sites, similar to the Beta Test evaluation, will also be conducted. The lawschool implementation and evaluation is included as a method by which emerging professionals inthe criminal and civil court systems may be targeted for early training prior to their entry into thecourt system.To build community capacity to further evaluate the effectiveness of such prevention efforts beyondthe scope of the Phase II effort, this proposal also includes a community-based participatoryresearch capacity strategy that piggy-backs on an already existing NIMH-funded initiative to enhancethe quality and number of junior research faculty who focus on suicide. This R25 grant will dedicatetwo suicide research institutes to providing an opportunity for key community stakeholders topartner with academicians to assess the impact of suicide prevention in their communities acrossbroad nontraditional mental health strategies.The proposed Phase II project is one that has the potential for having a significant national impact.The potential for this project to have a significant impact on public health is paramount, as is itspotential to act as a vehicle for creating, facilitating and integrating successful communitypartnerships .
