Florida – University of South Florida

The Florida Linking Individuals Needing Care (Florida LINC) Project is a partnership between the Florida Office of Suicide Prevention (SOSP), the Florida Council for Community Mental Health and the University of South Florida (USF) to innovatively enhance services to reach at-risk priority populations and ensure that young people receive needed services. The Inter-Agency Dissemination and Collaborative Network, the state suicide prevention infrastructure, will partner with up to three competitively selected applicant behavioral health regional coordinating service entities and utilize a sustainable mentorship model to continue to enhance, expand, and implement culturally sensitive, evidence-based (EBP) suicide prevention and early intervention strategies. Partnering entities will be selected based on need; prior suicide prevention experience; organizational capacity; established interagency partnerships and referral networks; community and stakeholder buy-in; and commitment to evaluation.

The goals/measurable objectives are to (a) continue to enhance the SOSP by cultivating sustainable partnerships; (b) expand the number of culturally competent trainers; (c) increase the quantity/quality of adult prevention gatekeepers; (d) utilize innovative training to increase: (i) the number of community and school personnel trained to manage crises associated with suicide, (ii) the number of youths/family members taught coping and support skills to prevent the development of suicide risk, and (iii) the quantity/quality of care coordinators able to link and track at-risk youths to cross-system, wrap around services; (e) increase distribution of prevention materials; (f) increase family involvement; (g) increase the number of at-risk youth identified by gatekeeper activities; (h) improve the quantity/quality of professional assessments of at-risk youth especially in high risk settings; and, (i) increase the number of referrals and successful, sustainable treatment, recovery, and support linkages for at-risk youth. Over 5 years, the project will prevent suicide morbidity and mortality by (1) conducting EBP training of adults [Question, Persuade, Refer, with 6,000 adults trained]; (2) training 300 mental health professionals [QPRs Suicide Risk Assessment and Management training] and 465 care coordinators [Linking Individuals Needing Care] with EBP/evidence-informed (EIP) programs; (3) providing skills training to 220 students [Penn Resiliency Program] and 720 family members [It?s Time to Talk about It Family Training] with EBP/EIP programs; (4) disseminating suicide prevention materials [16,000 National Lifeline materials and Its Time to Talk about it Family Guides distributed]; and (5) training 450 school/community personnel with an EIP program [Pillars of Postvention for Suicide Events].

Prevention efforts will target specific service sectors and at-risk youth (10-24): young adults not in school, youths involved with juvenile justice and foster care, military families, survivors of suicide attempts and loss, LGBTQ youth, AI/AN and Latino youths, and substance abuse, mental health, primary care, emergency department, and inpatient psychiatric settings. Independent quality assurance and evaluation efforts will be conducted by USF.