DIGEST - Volume 11, Issue 1

2 TPC Digest | TPC Digest chool counselors are often involved with suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. As the rates of youth suicide increase, there are greater demands for school counselors to be well-versed in a variety of ways to effectively work with students, teachers, and parents. In addition, children are now dying by suicide at a younger age, so the need for school counselors to implement counseling services at the elementary level has intensified. A review of the literature on comprehensive school suicide prevention and suicide protective factors supports that early prevention and intervention are essential to reducing youth suicides. Often school counselors will have some training in at least one of the areas, and many school counselors already implement curriculum or other interventions at their schools to address youth suicide. However, there are many programs to choose from when it comes to tackling youth suicide, and some can be costly and time intensive. Furthermore, not all programs address all three areas of suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention. In this article, we introduce a mnemonic device, SHORES, that was created for counselors to utilize with clients with suicidal ideation. The acronym of SHORES stands for Skills and strategies for coping (S); Hope (H); Objections (O); Reasons to live and Restricted means (R); Engaged care (E); and Support (S). Each part of the acronym is explained and suggestions for how this tool might be integrated into a comprehensive school counseling program are offered. Finally, a case study is provided with a middle school student to illustrate how SHORES might be implemented by a school counselor in classroom guidance, small-group, and individual settings. Diane M. Stutey, PhD, NCC, LPC, RPT-S, is a licensed school counselor and an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Jenny L. Cureton, PhD, LPC (TX, CO), is an assistant professor at Kent State University. Kim Severn, MA, LPC, is a licensed school counselor and instructor at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Matthew Fink, MA, is a doctoral student at Kent State University. Correspondence may be addressed to Diane M. Stutey, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, dstutey@uccs.edu. Diane M. Stutey, Jenny L. Cureton, Kim Severn, Matthew Fink Utilizing SHORES in School Counseling S