Suicide Prevention Research Program

Guided by the principles of social justice, client self-determination, and the respect and dignity of all individuals, the SPRP is the only center of its kind focused on having a direct impact on the lives of individuals at risk of suicide through a multi-pronged, collaborative approach that coordinates the expertise and experience of researchers, practitioners, and community advocates to advance knowledge and develop and improve translatability and adaptation of interventions to mitigate risk of suicide.

  • Mission

    The SPRP strives to serve as a coordinating force for translational research in suicide based on a strategy of developing and supporting opportunities for interdisciplinary investigations; collaborations between academia and practice, scientists and clinicians; and, training of early investigators and practitioners in new suicide prevention models and interventions.

    Vision

    The Suicide Prevention Research Program's (SPRP) vision is to improve the lives of individuals at risk of suicide through research, practice, education, and training.

    Goals

    The SPRP focuses on:
    1) developing new interventions aimed at improving the treatment engagement and utilization of individuals at risk of suicide;
    2) training frontline workers to effectively engage and work with at-risk individuals;
    3) developing mental health training program curriculum focused on suicide assessment, management, and treatments; and
    4) collaborating with community providers to encourage provider and patient involvement in education, prevention and clinical research efforts.

    Significance

    Guided by the principles of social justice, client self-determination, and the respect and dignity of all individuals, the SPRP is the only center of its kind focused on having a direct impact on the lives of individuals at risk of suicide through a multi-pronged, collaborative approach that coordinates the expertise and experience of researchers, practitioners, and community advocates to advance knowledge and develop and improve translatability and adaptation of interventions to mitigate risk of suicide.

  • The SPRP offers a number of trainings and workshops to academic institutions, mental health organizations, and students in mental health. Ranging from 1-day intensive trainings to 2-week workshops, topics include:

    • Teaching Mental Health Professions to Identify, Assess, and Treat Youth Suicide
    • Teaching Mental Health Professions to Identify, Assess, and Treat Adult Suicide
    • Teaching Mental Health Professions to Identify, Assess, and Treat Older Adult Suicide
    • Integrating Suicide Prevention and Intervention into Graduate Curriculum: Strategies for Educators
    • Integrating Suicide Prevention and Intervention into Mental Health Organizations: Strategies for Helping Professionals
    • Cultivating a Culture of Health: Supporting Colleagues and Co-Workers

  • Through collaborations with practitioners, administrators, and advocates in the community, the SPRP strives to improve the lives of individuals at risk of suicide by advancing knowledge to inform risk identification, promote protective factors, develop empirical and evidence-based clinical practice, and increase the mental health treatment engagement and adherence of at-risk individuals.

    PAST PROJECTS

    Research demonstrates that individuals at risk of suicide greatly underutilize mental health treatment. In an effort to develop interventions to improve the treatment engagement of at-risk individuals and ensure they receive the treatment needed to mitigate that risk, prior studies through the SPRP have focused on learning about treatment adherence of high-risk clients, gaining clinical staff perspective on barriers to engaging high- risk clients in treatment and on facilitators of treatment engagement.

    Past Collaborators:

    • FEGS Health and Human Services
    • Mental Health Association of New York State
    • Office of Mental Health of New York State

    CURRENT PROJECTS

    Current research projects through the SPRP are focused on the development, testing, and implementation of interventions aimed to improve the mental health treatment engagement of individuals at risk of suicide across populations (age groups, cultures, clinical presentation). These studies examine acceptability, feasibility, translatability, and adaption of the interventions.

    National Collaborators:

    • Mental Health Association of Westchester
    • Department of Psychiatry; Division of Health Services Research, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
    • MH-RITES Center, University of Houston

  • INTERNATIONAL WORK

    Suicide is a global phenomenon. However, risk and protective factors for suicide vary across cultures, as do attitudes towards mental health issues and perceptions of formalized mental health treatment. Through the SPRP, studies have been conducted on risk and protective factors for suicide and barriers and facilitators of treatment engagement to better understand the needs of local populations and inform the development of culturally relevant interventions. To date, projects are being conducted in Guatemala and Peru.

    The second area of the SPRPs international work is on providing trainings to helping professionals in the community working with at-risk individuals and faculty and graduate students in mental health graduate programs on suicide assessment, management, and treatment. These international collaborations also seek to develop graduate curricula focused on suicide assessment, management, and treatment and training faculty to teach this material in order to ensure future generations of mental health professionals capable of effectively engaging and working with at-risk individuals.

    Current International Collaborators:

Who We Are

SPRP is a multidisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners, and community advocates committed to raising awareness and improving the treatment of individuals at risk of suicide.

Program Founder & Director

Dr. Dana Alonzo

Dr. Dana Alonzo is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) at Fordham University. Dr. Alonzo has a wide range of clinical experience working with individuals with mood disorders and suicidality in outpatient, inpatient, and psychiatric emergency room settings. Informed by her clinical experience, Dr. Alonzo has spent the last fifteen years conducting research identifying unique, previously unrecognized risk and protective factors for suicide as well as barriers to and facilitators of mental health treatment engagement of at risk-individuals across cultures. Her research has also focused on the development of novel interventions aimed at improving the mental health treatment engagement and adherence of individuals at risk of suicide. She has provided trainings and workshops on suicide risk assessment, management and treatment in collaboration with local universities and community organizations both nationally and internationally. As a Principal Investigator, Dr. Alonzo has received funding for her research from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), the Mental Health Association of New York State (MHANYS), and the Office of Mental Health of New York State (OMHNYS).

Dr. Alonzo has authored over 30 peer reviewed publications in scientific journals, has co-authored two editions of a seminal text on suicide assessment and treatment, written chapters in multiple texts focused on mental health and suicide, and has given numerous presentations nationally and internally on her research.

Program Associates

  • Program Associate

  • Program Associate

    M. Colon has over 10 years of professional working experience with children, adolescents and families as a psychotherapist and program supervisor. Her primary research interests lie in protective factors and resiliency in suicidal adolescents, self-harm in adolescence, developing new clinical interventions for outpatient mental health settings and training of medical personnel. She also focuses on developing measurement tools and has expertise in analyzing data.

  • Program Associate

  • Associate Professor
    Graduate School of Social Service
    Fordham University

    Dr. Popescu’s work centers around social development and human rights. Dr. Popescu’s research interests include women’s rights (specifically focusing on violence against women in different settings and contexts); forced migration, migration policies and the impact of such policies on women asylum seekers and refugees, migration, trauma and impact on mental health (particularly as it relates to the criminalization of migration and use of detention centers for migrants); international interdisciplinary social work education; program evaluation; and the role of international organizations in addressing global issues and working with governments and communities to develop rights-based policies and programs. She has also worked on community capacity building internationally in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Guatemala, Ghana, Kenya, and Ukraine.

  • Associate Professor
    Graduate School of Social Service
    Fordham University

    Dr. Ross completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame; she earned Master’s degrees in Social Work and Public Health and a joint doctorate in Social Work & Sociology from Boston University. Informed directly by both her background in public health and her clinical work in emergency, outpatient psychiatry, and other pediatric medical settings, Dr. Ross’s research focuses improving the mental health service delivery system for children and adolescents at risk for suicide. Specifically, Dr. Ross's research focuses on early detection of suicide risk in children and adolescents, development and testing of family-based interventions designed to mitigate risk and expedite care, and systemic factors that promote sustainable delivery of preventive evidence-based interventions for children and youth at risk for suicide.

  • Assistant Professor
    Department of Psychiatry
    Division of Health Services Research
    University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

    Dr. Thompson conducts both public health and clinical research in the intersecting areas of substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, suicide, sexual risk behaviors, and homelessness. He has been the principle investigator of two NIH-funded randomized trials to develop and test the feasibility and preliminary effectiveness of brief motivational interventions to reduce substance use and sexual risk behaviors among homeless young adults, of whom more than half report suicidal ideation/attempt. Dr. Thompson has expertise in standardized and computer-assisted screening and clinical assessment; brief individualized motivational interventions; the incorporation of technological advances to enhance brief motivational interventions; motivational interviewing; cognitive-behavioral treatment; HIV-risk reduction strategies; study recruitment and compliance techniques; participant recruitment and tracking; and analyses of clinical trials.

  • Program Associate

    Dr. Siva Mathiyazhagan is Founder-Director of the youth-led non-profit Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL) International, based in India and the USA. He serves as TYCL representative to the United Nations. He is an affiliate researcher at SAFE Lab, Columbia School of Social Work, New York and development consultant and formerly served as Guest Faculty in the Department of Social Work, Pondicherry Central University. He has a Masters in Social Work (MSW) and a Ph.D. in Social Work, specialized in youth-centered community development from Pondicherry Central University. As part of TYCL, Siva established social innovations including Puducherry Youth Helpline- a suicide prevention hotline working towards zero youth suicide in Puducherry, Girls Lead Girls- a holistic self-defense program for girls, INaGi- a visual SWOT for youth-led community development, Children’s Incubation House for social innovation, and NKaNa –a career-focused mentorship program for young people with a mobile tracking application, all for the first time in India. Siva was a visiting scholar at the University of California Riverside and the University of La Sierra (2011). He has delivered several lectures on youth and emerging technologies and transnational youth-led social development in India, Europe, Canada, and the USA. He is also an alumnus of the UNESCO International Human Rights and Peace Building Training Program for Social Change Agents (2012), as well as the Clinton Global Initiative University (2011). Recently, Siva published “Social Incubation Workbook” for social entrepreneurs. Currently, Siva is working on “Ecosystem-Based Leadership Workbook” for young people. In the future, he intends to initiate a technology-enabled new social innovation lab for young people in a local and global effort to create an integral economy and a safe and inclusive society for young people.