What is QPR?

QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — 3 simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help. Each year thousands of Americans, like you, are saying “Yes” to saving the life of a friend, colleague, sibling, or neighbor. QPR can be learned in our Gatekeeper course in as little as one hour.

According to the Surgeon General’s National Strategy for Suicide Prevention (2001), a gatekeeper is someone in a position to recognize a crisis and the warning signs that someone may be contemplating suicide. Gatekeepers include parents, friends, neighbors, teachers, ministers, doctors, nurses, office supervisors, squad leaders, foremen, police officers, advisors, caseworkers, firefighters, and many others who are strategically positioned to recognize and refer someone at risk of suicide.

As a QPR-trained Gatekeeper you will learn to:

·         recognize the warning signs of suicide

·         know how to offer hope

·         know how to get help and save a life

QPR is a simple educational program that teaches ordinary citizens how to recognize a mental health emergency and how to get a person at risk the help they need. It is also an action plan that can result in lives saved. Our research and evaluations to date have shown positive results, some of which are available on this web site.

Everyone who works with people should take this training.

Presented by Garrett Lee Smith, Suicide Prevention Grant Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Canadian County Coalition for Youth and Families, and Youth & Family Services.