A panel of voices about suicide and peer social media spaces will be chatting with SPSM, 3/1/15, 9pm CST. Join us on Twitter using #SPSM hashtag and watch the LIVE stream here:

The Tweets for this chat will be archived on Storify.

We’ll be discussing their thoughts on how the issue of suicide is addressed in different peer social media communities, and their thoughts on what the field of suicide prevention should know about, consider, or learn regarding this issue. We’ll also be sharing news about what Forefront and Facebook are innovating as a response to this.

When it comes to the intersection of suicide and social media, there is a dilemma our field returns to, over and over. Social media is sort of the wild west. It is largely unregulated, and relies on the standards, skills, and wisdom of each community to determine how things are run (or not). When social media community members discuss suicide, either as the central issue of  a forum, or because it just comes up naturally (because it is a common public health issue and human experience), there are really different opinions about what, if anything, should be done. And, because of the fast-paced and plastic nature of social media, this is a really challenging area to address in our field’s traditional research and policy recommendation arenas.

We’ll be contributing to the conversation. Join us to share your hard questions, concerns, point of view, and recommendations. Our community is only as strong as the expertise we build together each Sunday chat.