Suicide Prevention & Postvention

Starting in 2008, the TAPS Suicide Prevention & Postvention department developed a field-leading, best-practice approach to care with the TAPS Suicide Postvention Model^TM, and has since provided hope and healing to tens of thousands of suicide loss survivors.

Our three phase model of support stabilizes survivors in the aftermath of a suicide death, guides them onto a health-promoting grief journey, and paves the way for achieving posttraumatic growth.

A January 2021 peer-reviewed article in the scholarly journal Death Studies lays out the Model in detail. "TAPS Suicide Postvention Model^TM: A comprehensive framework of healing and growth" discusses the history of the TAPS postvention program, anchors the Model in theory and clinical best practices, and describes in detail how the phases and tasks of the Model should be applied.

The TAPS Suicide Postvention Model^TM has become a crucial component of the suicide prevention strategies of other organizations. In some cases, the Model has been relied on to provide a critical foundation for the postvention approaches, resources, and toolkits of our partners. These include but are not limited to the U.S. Defense Department's Postvention Toolkit for a Military Suicide Loss and recommendations to the International Association of Chiefs of Police by the National Consortium for Preventing Law Enforcement Suicide. More outcomes based on the TAPS Suicide Postvention Model^TM can be reviewed in this third party study entitled Growth and Hope After Loss: How TAPS Facilitates Posttraumatic Growth in those Grieving Military Deaths.

The TAPS Suicide Postvention Model^TM is useful to all organizations outside the realm of the military and veteran communities. It is also applicable to forms of loss beyond suicide.

To learn more about the TAPS three-part Postvention Model or to contact one of our professionals for a consultation, please contact us at 202-588-8277 or suicidepostvention@taps.org.

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