The Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality: Effective Procedures for Using CAMS in Crisis Intervention Situations

In this course, Dr. Jennifer Crumlish, Assistant Director, Suicide Prevention Laboratory, The Catholic University of America, shows how clinician unease in dealing with suicidality has led to the tendency to arrange hospitalisation for clients anywhere on the suicidal spectrum, even though that is often not an appropriate solution. Instead, Crumlish proposes the use of CAMS (Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality), an empathy-based assessment and treatment framework which is driven by collaborative input of client and clinician. She shows how modifications of standard CAMS for brief interventions can be highly efficacious, with tools such as the Stabilisation Plan, Crisis Response Planning, and Caring Contact and Follow-up. Crumlish outlines some of the documentation used in CAMS and gives an example of the Dublin Simon Community Suicide-Specific Treatment Protocol.