Social-Emotional Learning and Youth Suicide Prevention

Youth suicide is one of the leading causes of premature death for youth, and it's on the rise across the country. Practitioners and policymakers alike are looking to address it. In those efforts, we're seeing social-emotional learning (SEL) show up. We reviewed programs under five strategies of evidence-based in-school youth suicide prevention, and saw components of SEL consistently appear in those programs. In this paper, we discuss known risk factors for youth suicide and how SEL can directly address and mitigate them. We recommend that policymakers continue to expand support for youth suicide prevention efforts, including by offering funding for comprehensive prevention that includes SEL, with additional funding to evaluate its efficacy. Download the full policy paper (PDF)
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