Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, with more than 49,000 Americans dying by suicide in 2023, according to the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control.
Clinical social workers, as one of the largest groups of mental health services providers in the U.S., often are at the forefront of suicide prevention, research and education. However, there are no standards of care specifically tailored toward members of the social work profession, said NASW President Yvonne Chase, PhD, MSW, LCSW, ACSW.
To address this, Chase recently announced she is launching a task force to develop national standards of care for suicide for social workers. Chase said she was contacted by two social workers with extensive training in suicide prevention and education: Michelle Scott, PhD, MSW, professor in the Monmouth University School of Social Work and director of the SRF Suicide Prevention Research and Training Project; and Maureen Underwood, LCSW, a clinical affiliate faculty member at Monmouth. Chase said they mentioned to her their concern about the lack of social work standards in this area.
“Maureen and Michelle have been working in suicide prevention, and suicide rates continue to be high,” Chase said. “As social workers, we didn’t have a set of standards for assessment … We were depending on colleagues in related professions” (like psychology). But their standards “don’t include the breadth of looking at the family as a whole.”
NASW has 17 existing sets of practice standards and guidelines, covering various areas, like child welfare, social work safety, technology, and school social work. Chase said she is not sure why suicide standards have not been developed before. It’s important, she said, because suicide rates across the country continue to be high. “My state (Alaska) has a high rate of adolescent suicide. So, I just think it’s time.”
Scott and Underwood will co-chair the task force and already have assembled its members and have begun to meet, Chase said. There are about 10 social workers with diverse backgrounds who will serve on the task force, she said.
Scott and Underwood, who are scheduled to present at NASW’s National Conference in June, plan to make an announcement and give updates on the task force during the conference. Chase said she wants to see the standards finished by June 2026, when her term as NASW president concludes.
“I think that this will accomplish having standards for the social work profession and not having to rely on standards of our colleagues in the helping professions,” Chase said. “It fills a gap that we’ve been missing.”