About the Academy

Dates

Academy Part 1: Introducing Zero Suicide (2 hours- Virtual)

Tuesday, September 30th, 2025 from 11:00pm-1:00pm ET 

Academy Part 2: Implementing Zero Suicide (2 days- In Person) 

Thursday, October 9th, 2025 from 10:00am-5:00pm ET 

Friday, October 10th, 2025 from 8:00am-3:00pm ET 

Academy Part 3: Sustaining Zero Suicide (2 hours- Virtual) 

Thursday, November 6th, 2025 from 11:00pm-1:00pm ET 

Description 

The South Carolina Department of Mental Health, partnered with the Zero Suicide Institute, invites the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Department of Mental Health, and associated behavioral health partners to join Zero Suicide Institute Senior Project Associate Laurin Jozlin for a two-day, Zero Suicide Academy in West Columbia, South Carolina. 

The Zero Suicide Academy is a training for senior leaders of health and behavioral healthcare organizations that seek to dramatically reduce suicides among individuals in their care.  

Using the Zero Suicide Framework, participants will learn how to incorporate best and promising practices into their organizations and processes to improve care and safety for individuals at risk. Zero Suicide faculty provides both interactive presentations and small group sessions, collaborating with participants to develop organization-specific action plans.

Learn More

Applications for this opportunity are due by August 29, 2025. Please submit one application per team. Individual team members do not have to register separately. The application should be under the team lead and list all team members. 

Location

Phillips Market Center 
117 Ballard Court 
West Columbia, SC 29172 

Eligibility 

South Carolina Department of Corrections, South Carolina Department of Mental Health, and associated behavioral health partners are eligible to attend this Academy. 

Objectives

The objectives of the Zero Suicide Academy are to: 

• Provide organizations interested in adopting a Zero Suicide approach with the skills and information necessary to launch their effort; 
• Create collaborative links between the organizations launching these initiatives in order to provide mentorship and support so that the perspectives, knowledge, and skills of each inform the work of the others; and 
• Aid in developing implementation plans for the Zero Suicide initiatives at each participating organization. 

Contact

Questions? Please Contact: 

Jessic Potito at jessica.potito@scdmh.org  regarding eligibility. 

Zero Suicide Institute at solutions@edc.orgregarding application assistance. 

How To Apply

(See content expanded below for Participant Eligibility, Application Instructions, Organizational Self-Study) 
 

Participant Eligibility

Only South Carolina Department of Corrections, South Carolina Department of Mental Health, and associated behavioral health partners are eligible to attend this Academy. Applicants are to attend the Zero Suicide Academy with a team of 4 individuals (including the team lead). 

Recommendations for team composition include: 

• Person(s) responsible and with authority for implementation decisions (e.g. Medical Doctor, CIO, ED, BH Director, or IT) 
• At least one senior leader/management (irrespective of discipline area). 
• At least one person who manages your electronic health records (EHR) system, quality improvement, or risk management.  
• Zero Suicide implementation team members should include persons who can both champion Zero Suicide with passion and those who have some power and influence in your system. This can include clinical directors, senior clinical staff with coordination over a certain area or department, information technology, risk management or quality improvement, or a person with lived experience. 
• At least one person (e.g., case manager, psychologist, social worker, nurse, other) who provides care directly to patients daily.  

Application Instructions

All organizations wishing to be considered for the Zero Suicide Academy will submit the application by clicking ‘apply’ below by August 29, 2025, 6 p.m. ET.   

Please submit one application per team. Individual team members do not have to register separately. The application should be under the team lead and list all team members.  

Application submission should include the following:

1. A letter of commitment written by the organization's CEO/Senior Executive Leader. The CEO/Senior Executive Leader should review and approve the submission and agree to the strategy proposed. You can review a template with suggested language here.   
2. A narrative that responds to the following (no more than 2 pages in length): 
   • Briefly describe the members of your Zero Suicide implementation team and their relevant skills, knowledge, and experience. 
   • What are your team's goals for participating in the Zero Suicide Academy and what does the team hope to learn during the training? 

Organizational Self- Study

If selected, participants will need to complete a Zero Suicide Organizational Self-Study with their implementation team members by  October 2, 2025. There are two versions of Organizational Self-Study: the General Organizational Self-Study and the Inpatient Organizational Self-Study. Organizations can choose to take one or both, if appropriate. 

If you would like to review the questions before taking the survey, we offer a PDF of each version of the Self-Study. To access these resources, you will need to create an account on the Zero Suicide website.