Citation

Bockhoff K, Ellermeier W, Rohrbach T, Hertel S, Bruder S. Psychol. Erzieh. Unterr. 2021; 69(4): 229-243.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021)

DOI

10.2378/peu2021.art16d

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

To improve suicide prevention in schools, school staff was trained to be 'gatekeepers' for pupils at risk. Previous research has found gatekeeper trainings to enhance theoretical knowledge about suicide, but less is known on how this may be transformed into action-related knowledge and actual behaviour. Therefore, N = 150 teachers and school social workers were randomly assigned to either a waiting-list control condition or to an intensive 12-hour gatekeeper training. Reactions to a fictitious crisis situation and the number of counselling contacts with students were assessed. Participants undergoing the training significantly improved in suicide-related and action-related knowledge. Most importantly, however, they initiated a significantly greater number of crisis counselling interactions with students in need than did untrained controls. Thus, the present results show that an intensive training increases future gatekeepers' domain-relevant knowledge and their actual crisis management. © 2021 Ernst Reinhardt Verlag. All rights reserved.

Language: de

Keywords

Suicide prevention; gatekeeper training; randomized controlled trial (RCT); teachers; school prevention programs