Mental Health Online: A Self- Report and E-Learning Program for Enhancing Recognition, Guidance and Referral of Suicidal Adolescents

Suicidal adolescents are underrepresented in mental health care (Cheung & Dewa, 2007), partly because young people commonly do not share their suicidal thoughts with their parents or other adults (Eskin, 2003; O’Donnell et al., 2003). Thus, their suicidality, including both suicidal behaviours and thoughts, (Bridge, Goldstein & Brent, 2006), is likely to remain undetected. This chapter reports on the development of the online suicide prevention program Mental Health Online. This program includes a self-report instrument to help adolescents recognize their suicidal thoughts and e-learning modules for training mental health gatekeepers to better identify and help suicidal adolescents. We then present the implementation of the program on the website http://www.MentalHealthOnline.nl.