Taking the Time to ASQ: Detecting and Managing Youth at Risk for Suicide in the Healthcare Setting

Youth suicide rates are continuing to rise, with significant disparities in rates across high-risk populations. Suicide prevention efforts require a multipronged public health approach, with significant opportunities for healthcare providers to be partners in this effort. Suicide care treatments, like CAMS, can reduce suicidal thoughts, behaviors and death. But how do we ensure that we can identify and support youth at greatest risk for suicide and get them to the care they need? Most young people who die by suicide are often seen by healthcare providers in the weeks and months prior to their deaths, indicating that this setting can be leveraged to identify and care for those at risk. This presentation will focus on how feasible and efficient suicide risk clinical pathways can identify those most in need of suicide care using evidence-based screeners like ASQ.

About Lisa M. Horowitz, PhD, MPH

Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Director of Preventing Suicide Initiative, Pediatric Mental Health Institute
Director of Hospital-Based Research, Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Children’s Hospital Colorado

Dr. Lisa Horowitz is a Pediatric Psychologist and a suicide prevention researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine / Children’s Hospital Colorado, where she now serves as Director of the Preventing Suicide Initiative and Hospital-based Research. She previously served as a Senior Associate Scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health at NIH for the past 20 years. Dr. Horowitz received her doctorate in clinical psychology from George Washington University, completed a Pediatric Health Service Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, and obtained a Masters in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. The major focus of Dr. Horowitz’s research has been in the area of suicide prevention in healthcare settings that involves validating and implementing tools for clinicians, such as the Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) tool and suicide risk clinical pathways, for both youth and adults. She is also one of the co-authors of the Blueprint for Youth Suicide Prevention, released by the American Academy of Pediatrics in March of 2022. Dr. Horowitz is collaborating with hospitals, and outpatient clinics both nationally and globally, assisting with implementation of suicide prevention.

About David A. Jobes, Ph.D., ABPP

David Jobes, PhD, ABPP, is the founder of CAMS-care, LLC. He began his career in 1987 in the Counseling Center of the Catholic University of America, where he developed a suicide risk assessment tool for college students that evolved into an evidence-based treatment, CAMS, recognized by the Joint Commission, the Surgeon General, Zero Suicide, and the CDC. Dr. Jobes is now a Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Clinical Training at Catholic; he has trained thousands of mental health professionals in the United States and abroad in evidence-based assessment and treatment of suicide risk and the use of CAMS.