SPRC Guide Helps in Planning Memorial Services after Suicide

The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) has published a guide to assist community and faith leaders who help plan memorial observances and provide support to individuals after the loss of a loved one to suicide.

The guide, titled “After a Suicide: Recommendations for Religious Services and Other Public Memorial Observances” includes helpful perspectives on grief, care, and support, and theological issues related to suicide. The information provided is part of the implementation of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“The grief and healing process of those who have survived the suicide of a loved one is often complicated by misinformation and misunderstanding," said David Litts, associate director of SPRC and author of the guide.

The nation's first federally funded suicide prevention resource center, SPRC is supported by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and is based at Education Development Center's division of Health and Human Development Programs. The center supports communities with the best of science, skills, and practice to prevent suicide, and provides prevention support, training, and resource materials to strengthen suicide prevention networks throughout the country.

"By better understanding suicide and its aftermath, community and faith leaders can be especially sensitive in providing care and can work to reduce the stigma, embarrassment, and unwarranted guilt that many survivors feel,” Litts said.

The suggestions in the guide are based on a considerable body of scientific research, as well as consultations with clergy and counselors who represent the range of religions and cultural communities and who have provided care during the aftermath of suicide.

Community and faith leaders can play a special role in supporting the family members and friends of the deceased. The guide offers some suggestions on how to help survivors, including the following:

• Reach out to intentionally draw survivors into the fabric of the community’s normal activities.
  
• Support survivors with the same gestures of kindness that are extended to those who have other types of deaths in the family.
  
• Talk about the deceased in the same way as any other person who had recently died.
  
• Encourage survivors to seek specialized support in their grieving process through support groups for survivors of suicide or through a therapist experienced with suicide survivors.

Also included in the guide are important recommendations for public memorial services with the goal of minimizing harm that can stem from some types of communication after a suicide. Special attention is given to suicide among the aging and infirm, as well as youth.

“After a Suicide: Recommendations for Religious Services and Other Public Memorial Observances” is available the SPRC web site at http://www.sprc.org/library/aftersuicide.pdf

December, 2004