Suicide and suicide attempts among adolescents are significant public health problems. Consequently, identifying at-risk youth in time to provide intervention not only helps to prevent suicides and suicide-related injuries but improves young persons' overall quality of life and increases the chances for healthy and productive lives. Believing that adolescent suicide can be prevented, Gutierrez and Osman have developed a set of tools for assessing suicide risk, designed especially for adolescents. In contrast to the most common assessments that focus solely on risk factors, these tools measure both risk and protective factors in order to predict more accurately the probability of suicide and suicide-related behaviors. This guide is designed to enable nonspecialists as well as professional clinicians, researchers, school psychologists, and other school-based professionals to select appropriate assessment tools and to evaluate the results.

Recognized experts in suicidology, both Gutierrez and Osman have published numerous specialized articles. This book synthesizes their work in a manner accessible to all practitioners responsible for identifying and working with at-risk adolescents. Included is an appendix of five assessment tools that can easily be photocopied for repeated use.