Suicide Prevention Contracting: The Pitfalls, Perils, and Seven Safer Alternatives

In Suicide Prevention Contracting: The Pitfalls, Perils, and Seven Safer Alternatives, Edwards and Goj expose one of the biggest myths operating in health care and human services for forty years or more. This book will challenge clinicians and their superiors who see Suicide Prevention Contracting (SPC) as a state-of-the-art standard of care intervention. No medical or mental health care professional, educator, lawyer, or health and human services decision maker can afford to ignore what this book presents. A family of new clinical terms and interlinked concepts, describing virtually every aspect of SPC is clearly articulated and ready for use in the workplace. Not until now has a book so simply yet comprehensively explained the widespread troubling practice of SPC. Written in an accessible narrative style, this landmark book presents vital information about a questionable suicide prevention intervention operating within this era of evidence-based practice and personal legal risk protection and, in doing so, offers seven safer alternative procedures.

Stephen J. Edwards, BSW, PhD, (University of Western Australia) is a current research (honorary) fellow at the University of Western Australia, senior mental health clinician (senior clinical social worker), and child and adolescent mental health service manager with Western Australian Mental Health Services. Christopher Goj, MA, (University of Auckland) is the former staff writer and program manager of suicide prevention education with Lifeline Aotearoa (New Zealand).