Lethal Means Safety for a Client or Patient

As a medical or behavioral health professional, you play a unique role in the lives of your patients or clients. You are with them in some of their most vulnerable moments. As a trusted influence on their health and well-being, you can identify the crisis signs, work with the person to remove their access to potential dangers in their home, and get them the help they need. Your work and knowledge can significantly lower the chances that your patients will impulsively harm themselves. We call this lethal means safety.

While many of these resources center around veterans, much of the guidance can be used when
working with other populations.

Webpages/Courses:

Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM) Free online training on how to reduce access to the methods people can use to harm themselves.

Recommendations for Clinicians: Lethal Means Counseling A guide for how to conduct lethal means safety counseling from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Mental Health Special: Care of American Veterans, Depression, PTSD, Suicide (Lethal Means) The Lethal Means section of a course for healthcare professionals called, “Mental Health Special: Care of American Veterans, Depression, PTSD, Suicide” from ATrain Education offers a research-focused approach that is applicable when treating both veteran and non-veteran patients.