Since its pilot in 2015, PC CARES has engaged over 500 trusted adults in community conversations to reduce suicide risk and build capacity for wellness throughout Northwest Alaska, the Bering Strait and Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Participants represent a variety of social roles—such as parents, teachers, providers, counselors, and community health workers—and have shown increases in their suicide prevention knowledge, preventative actions taken, and collaboration with others to promote youth wellness and suicide prevention.
Virtual PC CARES participants reported significant and beneficial changes after attending between 1 and 7 online PC CARES sessions, across all reported outcomes (including knowledge, self-efficacy for suicide prevention and wellness, community of practice, interpersonal support, working together for prevention, postvention, and lethal means safety).
The greatest changes occurred for participants attending 4+ of the sessions and for those with less mental health training (i.e. teachers increased more than school counselors).
Virtual PC CARES participants improved the most, and their close colleagues improved too. Non-participants who didn’t know anyone who did PC CARES stayed the same.
Changes spread to close colleagues: Previous research has shown that PC CARES participants spread what they learn with the people close to them, causing learning to “diffuse” to community members who’ve never attended PC CARES. This holds true for virtual delivery of PC CARES, though effects are not as dramatic as the learning circles hosted in person.
Comparing Baseline (before PC CARES) and Follow-Up (after PC CARES) scores for participants’ beliefs about their ability to promote wellness (“Wellness Self-Efficacy”), PC CARES participants improved the most, followed by their close friends and colleagues, as compared to non-participants. This shows how the changes made by PC CARES participants spread to others.
Who learned most: PC CARES is most beneficial for schools with fewer suicide prevention policies in place, and for people with less mental health training (i.e., teachers gained more knowledge than school counselors). Schools with fewer plans, policies, and supports related to prevention and postvention at baseline had more improvement in Knowledge and Suicide Prevention Self-efficacy.
More collaborators: PC CARES, even when virtually delivered, helps create communities of practice where people share a common interest and concern for preventing suicide and work together to share their knowledge, improve skills, and support each other. Participants with fewer colleagues in their school participating in PC CARES had more improvement in their feelings about having others to work with to prevent suicide and promote health after attending PC CARES.
Create action through broad involvement: Participants with more peers from their community attending PC CARES sessions took more action with others to prevent suicide and promote health.
The big picture: PC CARES offers a feasible virtual intervention to increase a variety of school staff’s (e.g. teachers, administrators, aides, etc.) tools for improving student mental wellbeing, decreasing suicide risk and sparking collaborative action.
Stay tuned for forthcoming publications describing these results. They will be linked on our website at www.pc-cares.org/research-eval