On Tuesday, May 5, 2015 members of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention attended a bill signing for Georgia House Bill 198, the Jason Flatt Act - Georgia. This law requires teachers, counselors and other certified public school personnel to have yearly suicide prevention training. The law also requires each school district to adopt a policy on suicide prevention. 

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention released this statement: 

"We thank Governor Deal for signing this important piece of legislation into law. Georgia will now become the 23rd state across the U.S. to require suicide prevention training for school personnel (joining five other states who have annual training requirements), and the 6th state to require school policies on suicide prevention. 

We would also like to thank the lead sponsor, Rep. Katie Dempsey, Senate sponsor, Sen. Renee Unterman, and the other bill sponsors (Reps. Tom Dickson, Sharon Cooper, Joyce Chandler, Brooks Coleman, and Pat Gardner) for their leadership and continued support.

The new law includes the following requirements:

• The Department of Education must require all certificated public school personnel to receive annual training in suicide awareness and prevention as part of existing in-service training programs/professional development. 
• The Department of Education must work with the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, the Suicide Prevention Program, and suicide prevention experts to develop a list of approved training materials that will fulfill the new training requirements. 
• Each local school system must adopt a policy on student suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention, developed in consultation with school and community stakeholders, school employed mental health professionals, and suicide prevention experts. 
• The Department of Education must establish a model suicide prevention policy for use by local school systems.

This would not have been possible without our colleagues at The Jason Foundation, The Trevor Project, Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association, Georgia Psychological Association, Mental Health America, and SPAN-Georgia."