New resources aimed at creating a "Best Practices" guide for suicide prevention among LGBT youth have been released this week by the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.

Over the past few years, media reports of suicide among LGBT youth has become increasingly more common. Communities, schools, colleges and youth service organizations have struggled to fill an urgent need in identifying at-risk youth, risk behaviors and intervention strategies to prevent suicide and suicidal behavior.

The new "Best Practices" resources include several studies and publications created by the Family Acceptance Project under the direction of Dr. Caitlin Ryan and are designed to help reduce vulnerability and risk among LGBT children, youth or adults.

The first of these resources – a multi-lingual, multi-cultural series of family education booklets – Supportive Families, Healthy Children: Helping Families Support their LGBT Children – have been designated as the first “Best Practice” resources for suicide prevention for LGBT youth and young adults by the national Best Practices Registry for Suicide Prevention.

“Our work is grounded in rigorous research and rooted in the cultural experiences and values of scores of diverse LGBT youth and families," said Dr. Caitlin Ryan, Director of the Family Acceptance Project. "So these family education booklets resonate for very diverse families and help them decrease rejecting behaviors which our research shows -- though motivated by care and concern – instead contribute to serious health risks for LGBT young people. For example, our research shows that common rejecting behaviors such as trying to prevent LGBT youth from learning about their identity, not allowing them to have gay friends or not letting them participate in an LGBT youth group are related to a 9-times greater likelihood of attempted suicide.”

In discussing the importance of FAP’s family education materials, Dr. Ann Haas, Director of Prevention Projects for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, noted: “For the past decade, Dr. Ryan and her team have undertaken foundational research on the role of families and related social institutions in contributing to protective factors and risk for suicidal behavior among LGBT young people. They have turned that research into powerful prevention tools for diverse families. Used in programs across the country, these tools will save lives.”

Supportive Families, Healthy Children is available for download on the FAP website at: http://familyproject.sfsu.edu/publications. Printed copies are available for distribution from the Family Acceptance Project in orders of any size. Lower literacy and faith-based versions are in development. FAP provides on-site training on using these materials and FAP’s research-based supportive family intervention model and other resources and tools. Contact [email protected] to obtain printed versions and for information on consultation and training.

Information on Supportive Families, Healthy Children’s “Best Practice” designation is available on the Best Practices Registry’s webpage hosted by the Suicide Prevention Resource Center at www.sprc.org.

Dear President McCormick,

I was a Reader's Digest editor for 20 years, and a commissioner of education in Los Angeles Unified School District (1996-99), as well as being a long-time published author.

Rutgers will never (your words) "rise to the highest tier" among American universities unless it does the right thing about Tyler Clementi's suicide.

Your school must act decisively in this case. You must expel both Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei for invasion of privacy of fellow student Tyler Clementi. Their actions were a clear violation of campus code.

If Rutgers does not enforce its own rules, you are sending a message that student lawlessness can rule your campus, whether it relates to LGBT students or other matters. This lethal incident will become a black mark on your school's reputation, and a red alert to parents, who will be well-advised to send their children to schools, where their rights, safety and privacy will be protected by rules that are actually enforced.

Sincerely yours,
Patricia Nell Warren

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Email we sent to the President at Rutgers:

My husband and I are both alumni of Rutgers University (Law School and Social Work School.) And we have many gay and lesbian family members.

We understand that the Rutgers University Code of Student Conduct prohibits "making or attempting to make an audio or video recording of any person(s) on University premises in bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, or other premises where there is an expectation of privacy with respect to nudity and/or sexual activity, without the knowledge and consent of all participants subject to such recordings."