Using Virtual Events to Encourage Engagement in a New Initiative for Health Care Systems

Background: Zero Suicide is a comprehensive, strategic approach to safer suicide care in health and behavioral health care organizations and systems. The Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC) is the lead for disseminating this approach to improve suicide care in health systems nationwide. We hosted and promoted a series of structured virtual events to disseminate key elements of the Zero Suicide approach to reach a broad audience, facilitate peer discussion and help our partners network. 

Program background: Since its launch in 2014, the Zero Suicide approach has been gaining momentum in health and behavioral health organizations across the country. To supplement the existing website resources and feature success stories of early adopters, SPRC held a series of public virtual events, which were structured and promoted to maximize reach and impact.  Each event used an intentional formula to create a panel featuring clinical leaders and professionals, as well as a consumer with lived experience, presenting on their perspectives related to a key Zero Suicide element (e.g., Trauma-Informed Care, Evidence Based Therapeutic Approaches).  We held a moderated discussion after the presentation to highlight the focal points and support further inquiries from our participants. To reach a wide audience, SPRC promoted each event broadly, and leveraged the connections of our main partners in promotion and support, SAMHSA and the National Council for Behavioral Health.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Our Zero Suicide virtual events maintained consistently large numbers of attendees, and the professionals who attended these virtual events consistently provided positive feedback.  On average, a typical SPRC virtual event has approximately 27 attendees.  Our Zero Suicide virtual events rarely had fewer than 300 attendees.  The webinar platform we used for the series allowed us to assess audience engagement as a quantitative measure via the Adobe Connect Engagement report.  During the moderated discussion segment of each Zero Suicide event, we observed at least 70% engagement by audience members during the public discussion segment. Since engagement is a key predictor of adults absorbing new information, this suggests that audience members were not only attentive during the event, but also that new information was likely retained.

Conclusions: The Zero Suicide initiative has become a widespread concept and is being put into practice in both health and behavioral healthcare systems.  SPRC credits SPRC credits its successful dissemination in large part to the public Zero Suicide virtual events.  Through this series, our attendees were able to learn about new information and best practices from multiple perspectives as well as to discuss concrete strategies for implementation, practice, and research. When well-planned and-promoted, virtual events allow organizations to disseminate—and public health professionals to readily apply—new information and approaches in the field, while receiving support from an online community of peers.

Implications for research and/or practice: Additional research is needed to quantify gains in knowledge and capacity, and to understand how these translate to improved program implementation and prevention outcomes for the Zero Suicide Initiatives.