Safety Planning with Adolescents at Risk of Self Harm

Suicide and Self Harm are major global health concerns with regards to adolescents. Safety Planning is a step-by -step brief psychological intervention that shows promise in the management of risk of self harm with this age group. However, there is limited research which examines the use of safety planning with this age-group and the involvement of parent/ guardians in the safety planning process. This thesis seeks to address this gap. In the first instance, a Scoping Review aims to explore the components and characteristics of safety planning tools and interventions, locating 74 relevant examples from across the academic and grey literature. The literature available highlights that although most safety plans described appeared to be based on specific interventions, there was a large amount of heterogeneity of components and characteristics observed, particularly with regards to safety planning within the grey literature. The results of this review informed the first-round questionnaire of a Delphi method study which sought to explore professional and parent/ guardian opinion on the components of safety planning interventions deemed most important for inclusion with adolescents as well as gathering opinion on important considerations for the delivery of the intervention. Two iterations of questionnaires were undertaken and consensus was obtained suggesting certain adaptions to the intervention were required for use with the age group, in particular the more active involvement of parents/ guardians in the process. Overall the results of this thesis add to the current literature on the topic of safety planning by providing greater insight into the use of the term, as well as insight into how safety planning might be adapted for use with this population. Future research might seek to develop these findings further, through the involvement of adolescents themselves as well as through studies examining the efficacy of the approach with this age group.