SPSM Chat Mission: Timely and engaging expertise in Suicide Prevention Social Media. Generated and curated for professional and public use.

SPSM Chat is targeted towards mental health and communication professionals using social media to make suicide a “never” event. Using Twitter we’ll generate, curate, and share the best information and innovations in SPSM. Join us Sunday nights, 9pm CST, as we present topics and guest experts in this field. Can’t make it? We’ll be curating and distributing a blog of the evening’s tweets each week. Convenient, shareable, searchable information in a rapidly changing area of expertise. Follow us on Twitter: @SPSMChat.

Our premier chat will be 8/11/13, 9pm CST.

The Tweets for this chat will be archived on Storify.

Theme: Suicide Prevention and Social Media: Recommended guidelines and Best Practices.

Guest Experts (and recommended content):

Ashley Womble is a media specialist at the intersection of suicide prevention and social media. She works to increase visibility and awareness of Link2Health Solutions’ through print and online communications, outreach activities, media, speaking events. Programs include the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Disaster Distress Helpline, Veterans Crisis Line, NFL Lifeline, WTC Health Program and the Crisis Contact Center.

Christopher Gandin Le, M.A., joined the field of suicide prevention in 2003, hired by David Litts after applying for “the wrong job.” Chris has since helped launched the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Veterans Crisis Line, CrisisChat.org and CrisisTextLine. When no one was discussing the intersection of social media and suicide prevention, Christopher Gandin Le was asking questions and pushing the work forward on a national level, and he is proud that other people are joining the conversation. During his time at the Lifeline, he established protocol for online suicide prevention and partnerships with all of the major social networking websites, and he wrote the white paper on suicide and social media for SAMHSA. He was also a key informant for the social media components on the new media guidelines for reporting on suicide.  Christopher Gandin Le is a graduate of Teachers College of Columbia University. He is CEO of Emotion Technology, a company that specializes in social media, storytelling, and creative work specific to suicide prevention. More about Emotion Technology at http://emotiontechnology.com/  After ten years, he’s happy to have applied for what has become the right job.