by Nick Hanzel-Snider
Until recently, Kognito provided mental health, well-being, and suicide prevention training to 1.5 million people across more than 50,000 institutions. Kognito used simulations to bring experiential learning to K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. However, beginning August 2, 2023, the Kognito brand began sunsetting, i.e. the company stopped selling or marketing its trainings.
If you are among those former Kognito clients wondering how to continue offering high quality mental health and suicide prevention education to your students, faculty, and staff, the SOS Signs of Suicide suite of products may be exactly what you need.
Through its signature At-Risk trainings, Kognito reached several important audiences:
- Middle and high school students,
- K-12 teachers and school staff,
- Undergraduate and graduate students, and
- College/university faculty and staff.
Below we’ll outline how SOS Signs of Suicide offers a great alternative to Kognito for each of these audiences.
Suicide Prevention for Middle & High School Students
SOS Signs of Suicide for middle and high schools is our flagship prevention program. Listed on the Suicide Prevention Resource Centers’s Best Practice Registry and backed by randomized controlled trials – the “gold standard” of research studies – SOS has been shown to reduce suicide attempts by 64%. The program teaches students how to identify signs of depression and suicide in themselves and their peers, while providing materials that support school professionals, parents, and communities in recognizing at-risk students and taking appropriate action.
Like Kognito’s Friend2Friend program, SOS Signs of Suicide helps 6th-12th graders:
- Learn about mental health;
- Identify warning signs of depression and suicide risk; and
- Foster help-seeking skills for themselves and their peers.
Evidence-based SOS Signs of Suicide can be administered by any trusted adult – such as teachers, counselors, or community partners – in a single class period and includes refresher content so the program can be used with students year after year.
Suicide Prevention for K-12 School Staff
SOS for School Staff is a self-guided, interactive training which uses the ACT (Acknowledge, Care, Tell) framework to provide hands-on practice scenarios and diverse stories from real staff who share their experiences helping students in distress.
Like Kognito At-Risk trainings, SOS for School Staff helps teachers, counselors, administrators, and other faculty and staff:
- Feel prepared to recognize signs of suicide risk in a student;
- Feel confident having a caring conversation with a student in need;
- Know how to keep a student safe while connecting them to appropriate supports; and
- Embrace their role in helping students build connection in schools.
Additionally, SOS for School Staff goes beyond conversation practice to include learning about warning signs directly from young people with lived experience who share their stories in their own words. SOS for School Staff is informed by our evidence-based SOS Signs of Suicide program for middle and high school students (which reduced suicide attempts by 64% in randomized controlled trials).
Suicide Prevention for College/University Students
Kognito’s At-Risk Mental Health for Students used simulated role-play to equip college and university students with the skills needed to recognize warning signs of suicide in themselves and their peers, understand support options, and effectively refer a fellow student to additional support. SOS for Higher Ed: Suicide Prevention for Students meets all these learning objectives, while also including real-life stories from college students who were in distress and the perspectives of friends trying to help. These lessons offer relatable views of how to apply these learnings to students’ daily lives.
Like Kognito, SOS Signs of Suicide also offers supporting resources to help market the training to students. Purchase of SOS for Higher Ed includes access to:
- Our best practices guide for incorporating the course into pre-existing initiatives and championing suicide education across campuses;
- Group facilitation guides for delivering the online training in an in-person group or classroom setting; and
- Messaging templates to help communicate the program’s value to your campus via website, email, social media, and more.
Suicide Prevention for Higher Ed Faculty & Staff
More than 350 universities and colleges used Kognito’s At-Risk Mental Health for Faculty & Staff training to prepare professors, administrators, and other higher ed staff to support mental well-being on campus. Like Kognito’s other At-Risk trainings, this program aimed to promote awareness of suicide risk, teach faculty and staff warning signs, prepare them to speak up when they see these signs in a student, and guide them in connecting students in need with campus supports. Once again, SOS for Higher Ed: Suicide Prevention for Faculty & Staff meets these learning objectives, while also adding firsthand accounts from real college/university employees.
Like its student counterpart, faculty/staff SOS for Higher Ed includes additional resources to help spread the word about the importance of suicide prevention education throughout your campus community.
Suicide Prevention Solutions for All
With our suite of suicide prevention training for middle and high school students, K-12 school staff, college/university students, and higher ed faculty and staff, SOS brings life-saving knowledge and skills to thousands of individuals every year. With the sunsetting of Kognito, SOS is the perfect replacement.
