The definition
Postvention is what a school does after a student dies by suicide. Notification, support, memorialization decisions, media handling, identifying and supporting students at heightened risk, and getting the building back to something a community can function in.
It is also, if done well - prevention! The period after a suicide death is a period of elevated risk for the people around it.
Whose job it is
Your district's. ORS 339.343, Adi's Act, requires every Oregon district to adopt a student suicide prevention plan, and that plan must address postvention. See Module 1.4.
So your district has a plan. Find it, read it, and know who is on the response team before you need to.
✓ Take Action. Right now, before anything else in this Unit: locate your district's Adi's Act plan and find the postvention section. If you cannot find it in fifteen minutes, that is the finding, and the person who owns the plan needs to know.
What SAFER does and does not do
SAFER does not: run your postvention response, replace your crisis team, make memorialization decisions, handle media, or lead family contact.
SAFER does: stand down, support, and come back when asked. Specifically, SAFER can help a school think about screening timing afterward (Module 11.2), can supply Tier 2 group structures for students affected, and can help read what the screening data already said about students in that student's grade or friendship group, where doing so is appropriate and where the school asks.
The most useful thing SAFER can say to a school in the days after a death is that this is not our part.
The Oregon resources that are better than this Unit
Point to these rather than duplicating them.
- OHA offers postvention support through Suicide Rapid Response - run by Lines for Life
- CAIRN Oregon School Suicide Prevention and Wellness Protocol Toolkit (2017) has the most complete Oregon-specific postvention protocols available.
- The Adi's Act Toolkit (2021) supports districts writing the required plan.
- The Oregon Toolkit for Suicide Intervention in Schools (2025) carries current OHA-developed guidance.
