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Education and Training

All trainings are offered both in-person & virtually, pending Covid-19 health & safety guidance.

Light After Loss is dedicated to helping the mental health field and community members of Stark County through education and training about survivors of suicide loss. We offer a variety of trainings and educational workshops for communities, schools, organizations and mental health agencies/practices.
Light After Loss is an approved CE provider with the Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board of Ohio. The cost of a CE training will vary based on several factors including size of the audience, topic, length of training, customization and CE information management. We will also work with organizations with limited budgets to assist with providing quality training within the constraints of your budget.
Additional suicide and loss-related topics may be requested and will be discussed/built in collaboration with the requestor.

For questions and to request a training, please contact Emily “Em” Ribnik, M.A., LPCC-S, CGCS and Training, CE & Certification Coordinator at Training@lightafterlossstark.org

CES VARY

Trauma-focused Care

Being trauma-focused is important when treating suicide bereavement

Learn why being trauma-focused in all areas of care provision, from the first call to discharge, is in important when treating suicide bereavement. These trainings help attendees understand why suicide bereavement is more than grief – it is also trauma.

Attendees will:

  • Learn what trauma is
  • Learn why suicide bereavement is different from and more the “just grief”
  • Learn trauma-focused interventions for clients that are struggling with suicide loss and bereavement
  • Learn communication skills and information sharing techniques for front desk and other first contact non-clinical staff
CES VARY

Postvention Training

Learn how to respond after a suicide

Our postvention trainings are specifically designed to help individuals learn how to respond after a suicide death.

Topics include:

  • How to support suicide loss survivors
  • Understanding how postvention is also suicide prevention
  • How to keep those at risk of taking their own lives safe
  • Safe messaging in all media formats
  • Postvention planning as a prevention strategy
  • Flexible content to address the needs of your audience
2 CE HRS.

Clinicians and Client Death

The death of a client can cause both personal and professional repercussions for mental health professionals. Our own experiences with death may help us better prepare for how we may deal with a professional death and how to support others. This presentation explores some of the more common reasons for client deaths in the mental health field and the different impacts these types of deaths can have on mental health professionals. This presentation will also explore the similarities and differences between grief reaction in our professional and personal identities – including helping to identify areas of conflict between the two.

Topics include:

  • How clinicians can care for themselves
  • How clinicians can offer support to others
  • Recommendations for system level advocacy within organizations and practices
1.5-3 CE HRS.

Supervision, Suicide and Supervisees

The suicide of a client can have pervasive professional and personal impact on a supervisee. This presentation offers an opportunity for supervisors to widen their understanding of these possible impacts and how their supervisory relationship with a supervisee can protect the supervisee from the most distressing impacts. Supervisors will learn what the possible impact of a client suicide may be on a supervisee, how these impacts may differ between a graduate student and a licensed supervisee, engage in reflective activities to better understand the culture and climate of their site, and learn additional suggestions to enhance their supervision to both prepare for and appropriately respond to the suicide of a client.

Supervisors will:

  • Gain an understanding of the personal and professional impact of a client suicide on supervisees including differences between graduate student supervisee and licensed clinician supervisee responses to a client suicide
  • Integrate additional education training assessment and trust building in their supervision to help decrease the negative impact of a client suicide
  • Have an enhanced understanding of supervision components that happen within and outside of the direct supervisory relationship and supervision sessions
1 CE HR

QPR Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training

A fast, free and evidenced based way to train your staff!

Free of cost

QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — the 3 simple steps anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to connect with help and treatment. Our trainers are certified through the QPR Institute.

  • Identified as an Evidence Based Suicide Prevention Training
  • Appropriate for all staff employees volunteers and interested community members
  • We come to your agency school or business
  • We will also provide QPR resource booklets to each attendee
2 CE HRS.

Generational Suicide

Healing the Past, Protecting the Future

Thousands of people are impacted by suicide every day. Over 130 people take their lives everyday leaving over 1400 people impacted by that loss. Family, friends, coworkers, and even entire communities are left behind. Survivors of suicide loss are statistically more likely to go on and take their own lives. Depending on the relationship to that person, it can be nearly fifty percent. When working with family systems, you can sometimes trace the ripple effect for generations.

In this session clinicians will learn:

  • The reasoning behind the generational pattern of suicide and why it’s important to gather such information in the assessment process
  • To evaluate whether the presenting concerns are correlated with the unhealed trauma of suicide of suicide loss for better treatment planning
  • How to empower clients who are suicide loss survivors for better treatment planning
  • How to educate and empower clients who are loss survivors to not only heal the past but also protect the future
1-2 CE HRS.

A Tale of Two Clinicians

Clinicians as Suicide Loss Survivors

Mental health clinicians aren’t always viewed by the public, nor by themselves, as suicide survivors. However, with an estimated 50% of those that die by suicide being actively engaged in mental health care at the time of their death, mental health clinicians may be unique suicide survivors due to their relationship with the deceased. This complicated relationship can have direct impacts on how the mental health clinician manages their response to the suicide death. These impacts can show up in both their personal and professional lives. Stigma about suicide and concerns about being judged by peers are significant influences for mental health clinicians. Both presenters are survivors of suicide in multiple identities of their lives. They will discuss their different experiences as people and as mental health clinicians. Research on the impact of client suicide on mental health clinicians will also be presented. The presenters will also guide attendees through caring and advocating for themselves, as well as others, at their organizations and agencies after a client completes suicide

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Training is now made available in-person and virtually. 

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