Youth Suicide Awareness & Prevention

Jason Flatt Act

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On May 13, 2016 Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed The Jason Flatt Act-Kansas, also known as Senate Bill 323, into law. This act is named for Jason Flatt, a high school student that committed suicide in 1997. The Jason Flatt Foundation began working with state organizations to influence legislation for including youth suicide awareness and prevention training within Teacher’s In-Service and eventually resulting in basis for The Jason Flatt Act. The mission statement for the Jason Foundation is “The Jason Foundation, Inc. (JFI) is dedicated to the prevention of the “Silent Epidemic” of youth suicide through educational and awareness programs that equip young people, educators/youth workers and parents with the tools and resources to help identify and assist at-risk youth.”

The provisions of this bill that are relevant to suicide awareness and prevention are:

The board of education of each school district shall provide suicide awareness and prevention programming to all school staff and shall notify the parents or legal guardians of students enrolled in such school district that the training materials provided under such programming are available to such parents or legal guardians.
Such programming shall include at a minimum:

o At least one hour of training each calendar year based on programs approved by the State Board of Education. Such training may be satisfied through independent self-review of suicide prevention training materials; and

o A building crisis plan developed for each school building. Such plan shall include: