Suicide is defined as the act or the instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally.

Young people who commit suicide usually are not focused on killing themselves. They are usually focused on ending their pain. Young people often believe that the sense of unhappiness they feel is a permanent condition and that they have limited choices. Those choices are to continue to live in pain or to end the pain by killing themselves. For youth, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

The full Guidelines on Suicide Prevention (as of the FY2007-8, from the School Emergency Response Plan) is available in Word or PDF versions.