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Abstract
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Suicide is a leading cause of death among youths in the United States, and survey data indicate that approximately one in five youths had serious thoughts about suicide in the past year. Research on effective strategies to identify and assist social media users who experience a mental health crisis is limited. Moreover, the legal landscape is unclear on the responsibilities of social media platforms regarding safety and monitoring of their young users' mental health. Safe Social Spaces (SSS) is a community-based online crisis intervention program for youths who post content raising concerns about a mental health crisis.
SSS was created by YouthLine, a service specializing in youth crisis intervention provided by Lines for Life, an Oregon-based nonprofit organization dedicated to suicide prevention. Since 2019, SSS has interacted with English-speaking young users on social media platforms. Currently, SSS engages with users on Discord, TalkLife, and Vent, which host millions of accounts and contain forums for users to share experiences of emotional health problems.
SSS staff must have at least an associate degree and complete >55 hours of training in crisis intervention and gatekeeper training, including Mental Health First Aid for youths and safeTALK. General training is coordinated by Lines for Life's assistant director of youth development, training, and quality assurance, and position-specific SSS training is facilitated by the assistant director of clinical operations, who together have >20 years of experience. SSS staff log onto the social media platforms and scroll through recent posts to identify content suggesting a mental health crisis, such as suicidal ideation, self-harm, or symptoms of poor mental health. After identifying such posts, staff review content, tone, and previous posts to gauge the posters' age in order to contact those ages <24 years. SSS staff, who do not identify themselves as such unless queried by the poster, then send a private message to the poster responding to what the poster shared, establishing rapport, and expressing concern about the poster's well-being to initiate a dialogue. If the poster responds, the conversation is continued until a safety plan is created. If the poster either does not respond or stops responding before a safety plan has been developed, SSS staff send mental health resources to the poster. During each shift, SSS staff aim to establish at least six new contacts. ...
Language: en |