Leveraging Voices from Suicide Prevention Education Experts, Program Presenters, and People with Lived Experience

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) implemented a framework to elevate voices from those presenting and attending suicide prevention education programs to improve the signature program, Talk Saves Lives. In this presentation, presenters will discuss the collaborative process of engaging community partners, program presenters with lived experience, and suicide prevention experts to co-create an evaluation that aligns with community needs. Using a culturally responsive evaluation (CRE) practices framework, authors will highlight the mixed methods approaches employed to engage the voices of community members including pilot testing, survey adaptation, data analysis, and focus groups. Presenters will discuss how community engagement influenced lessons learned around inclusiveness, equity, face validity, content, and ecological validity. The presentation will discuss how the dialogue with community members contributed to the measurement of knowledge gain, beliefs about suicide prevention, likelihood to engage in preventative behaviors, barriers to talking about suicide with others, and program satisfaction. Presenters will highlight how ongoing data collection will help shape the Talk Saves Lives program and the importance of ensuring that evaluation findings are presented in a manner that is comprehensible, relevant, and actionably useful for diverse local partners who are implementing programs on the ground.