ASIST Background

ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) was developed in Canada in 1983 by a partnership of four mental health professionals (Richard Ramsay, Bryan Tanney, Roger Tierney and William Lang) in conjunction with the Canadian Mental Health Association and the government of Alberta. They worked to develop a suicide intervention training programme that would be suitable for both professional and other caregivers. The partnership evolved to create LivingWorks Education Inc. in 1991, a community services organisation aimed at providing suicide prevention education and consultation.

ASIST is now by far the most widely used suicide intervention skills training in the world with 3,000 registered trainers in Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland and the UK. The programme has been refined over a 23 year period with feedback from over 500,000 participants worldwide.

The first Scottish workshops were held in Shetland in 2003 and, to date, there have been over 576 workshops throughout the country and over 11,500 participants trained. There are ASIST Trainers in each local authority area in Scotland. Working in partnership with key national agencies such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health (SAMH), ChildLine and the armed forces has led to training being delivered in increasingly broad community settings. This work will continue being developed over the next few years. 

Choose Life is currently planning to commission an  independent national evaluation of ASIST.