FOOTNOTES
1. Ramsay, Tanney, Tierney and Lang, who later established LivingWorks Education Inc.
2. It must be acknowledged that there is some ambiguity in the term "caregiver." LivingWorks defines a caregiver as "any person in a position of trust". "This includes professionals, paraprofessionals and lay people. It is suitable for mental health professionals, nurses, physicians, pharmacists, teachers, counselors, youth workers, police and correctional staff, school support staff, clergy, and community volunteers." See www.livingworks.net/AS_Abt.php.
3. Beautrais A. (1998). A review of evidence: In our hands - The New Zealand youth suicide prevention strategy. Report for the New Zealand Ministry of Health. The document is available on the Ministry of Health's website: http://www.moh.govt.nz
4. Rychetnik L, Frommer M, Hawe P, & Shiell A (2002) Criteria for evaluating evidence on public health interventions. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 56: 119-127.
5. Upshur R (2001) The status of qualitative research as evidence. In J Morse, J Swanson & A Kutzel (Eds.), The nature of qualitative evidence (pp. 5-26). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6. White J (2005) Preventing Suicide in Youth: Taking Action with Imperfect Knowledge. A research report prepared for the British Columbia Ministry of Children and Family Development. University of British Columbia.
7. Spencer L, Ritchie J, Lewis J & Dillon L (2003). Quality in qualitative evaluation: a framework for assessing London. See: http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/docs/qqe_rep.pdf, in particular, pp 22-28.
8. None of the Scottish evaluations describe ASIST workshops that specifically target young people or university students.
9. The Foyle Health and Social Services Trust is responsible for the provision of community health and social care services in the council areas of Derry City, Limavady and Strabane, Northern Ireland.
10. ASIST in Australia: http://www.livingworks.org.au; ASIST in Norway: http://www.unn.no/category10029.html; ASIST in Scotland: www.chooselife.net/Training/Training.asp.
11. General information about ASIST in Australia was taken from the 'LivingWorks Australia' website: http://www.livingworks.org.au. Up-to-date figures regarding the number of workshops & trainees were provided by Nicole Kooy, LivingWorks Coordinator of Training Resources & Research, Australia.
12. General information about ASIST in Norway was taken from the 'Vivat' website, http://www.unn.no/category10029.html, and from Silvola (2004). Up-to-date figures regarding the number of workshops & trainees were provided by Harriet Johansen, Vivat Consultant, Norway.
13. General information about ASIST in Scotland was taken from the 'ChooseLife' website: www.chooselife.net. Up-to-date figures regarding the number of workshops & trainees was taken from the national ASIST database, held and maintained by the Scottish Government.
14. Kirkpatrick D.L. (1959). Techniques for evaluating training programmes. Journal of American Society of Training Directions: Vol 13, pp. 3-9; 21-26, and vol 14, pp. 13-18; 28-32
15. Ken Ingram, in 'Helping trainers to love evaluation', The Evaluator, Summer 2004. (Newsletter of the UK Evaluation Society).
16. Knowledge, skills and attitudes have been measured in the various papers as either individual variables or as an overall "readiness" score.
17. Note that, in one of the two studies which used a simulated scenario measure (Turley et al, 2000), the trainee group had a higher level of baseline experience and competency in suicide intervention than the control group. While acknowledging this weakness in design, the authors claim that this actually highlights the capacity of the workshop to facilitate enhanced suicide intervention competencies even among those who have prior experience and training.
18. Zemke R & Zemke S (1988). 30 Things We Know about Adult Learning. Training: 57-61.
19. A report of the evaluation of SMHFA is available from: www.healthscotland.org.uk/smhfa/index.cfm.
20. General information about MHFA was taken from the Australian MHFA website: www.mhfa.com.au.
21. Mental health first aid training for the public: evaluation of effects on knowledge, attitudes and helping behaviourBMC Psychiatry 2002: 2:10.
22. All the information in this section is taken from the Australian MHFA website: www.mhfa.co.au.
23. After the second evaluation, other trainers were recruited.
24. http://www.wellscotland.info/research-papers.html
25. http://www.healthscotland.org.uk/smhfa/IndEvaluation.cfm
26. Turley B, Pullen L, Thomas I & Rolfe A (2000). LivingWorks Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training ( ASIST): A Competency-Based Evaluation. Report for Lifeline Australia Youth Suicide Prevention Project.
These papers were written by (or with contributions from) the creators of ASIST.
27. Spencer L, Ritchie J, Lewis J & Dillon L (2003). Quality in qualitative evaluation: a framework for assessing research evidence. Report produced for the Cabinet Office by the National Centre for Social Research. Government Chief Social Researcher's Office, London. http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/docs/qqe_rep.pdf, in particular, pp 22-28.
28. Valid = instrument measures what it's supposed to measure; Reliable = instrument yields consistent, stable and replicable findings
29. Inappropriate methods of data collection are such that compromise the integrity of research data - mainly, the use of inappropriate statistical tests to evaluate results, bias, or sloppy technique.