NEWS
Shrewsbury International School Bangkok Offers ASIST Workshops to Prevent Suicides
In addition to enriching our students’ lives, Shrewsbury International School Bangkok, Riverside is also committed to enhancing the skills of our staff members. This year, staff at Shrewsbury have been offered the opportunity to develop their pastoral care skills by attending ASIST workshops, run by members of our Wellbeing team. These are specialised workshops aimed at preventing suicides within our community. The skills learned at the workshops enable anyone to intervene and provide support for a person at risk of suicide.
Two members of the Shrewsbury community, Cassie Lockwood (Head of Student Welfare) and Supattra Wattananond (former Pastoral Care Assistant), have been trained by the internationally accredited body, LivingWorks, to deliver the workshops. So far, the pair has trained 46 members of staff in the skills of “suicide first aid”.
Similar to actual First aid, these 46 members of staff have been trained to have the confidence to intervene in a situation where a person may be having thoughts of suicide and step in to keep that person safe for the moment. These skills taught provide our community with a growing number of people trained and able to support each other in difficult moments, with the knowledge of how to provide and access further support.
The two-day ASIST workshops have run three times this year and have been attended by staff members whose roles may bring them into contact with people experiencing difficulties in their lives. This includes admin staff, teachers, TAs, Heads of Departments, and members of SMT - covering both Junior and Senior schools. Thai and non-Thai staff have taken up the training, meaning our community has been strengthened to offer support to each other, regardless of language barriers.
The school aims to support the whole Shrewsbury community by continuing to run the workshops next year, not only to save lives, but also to help lessen the taboo and stigma surrounding suicide. Feedback from the workshop is that it is often the first time participants have ever discussed the issue of suicide, and it helps challenge the perception that discussing suicide will lead to more deaths. Research shows quite the opposite is true, and having the confidence to ask another person if they are having thoughts of suicide could save a life.
The ASIST workshop is divided into five sections that follow in a logical progression to gradually build comfort, confidence, and understanding around suicide and suicide intervention.
Preparing: Sets the tone, norms, and expectations of the learning experience over the two days.
Connecting: Enables participants to reflect on their attitudes towards suicide. This creates an understanding of the impact that attitudes can have on the intervention process.
Understanding: An overview of the intervention needs of a person at risk. The trainers focus on providing participants with the knowledge and skills to:
Recognise risk
Develop safe plans to reduce the risk of suicide
Increase the safety of the person
Assisting: Presents a model for effective suicide intervention. Participants develop their skills through observation and supervised simulation exercises in large and small groups.
Networking: The trainers share information about resources in the local community and promote participant commitment to encouraging the transformation of local resources into helping networks.
The staff has frequently commented that the workshops offer them a unique piece of continuous professional development, by offering them skills they can use both in school when caring for students, but equally when working with parents, family, and friends, and even in their everyday lives outside of school. We are confident that the skills learned through these vital workshops serve to strengthen our community, and beyond.
